


Skeletons, Humans, and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?!

by valblue1314



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Experimentation, Gen, Hidden Secrets, Kidnapping, Major Character Injury, Swapfell Papyrus - Freeform, Swapfell Sans, Torture, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans, Underswap Papyrus, Underswap Sans, hidden past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valblue1314/pseuds/valblue1314
Summary: When the fells, the swaps, and the swapfells show up it's obvious that something is going on but when one of the skeletons goes missing things get a lot more serious.





	1. How Did This Happen?

**Author's Note:**

> I suck at writing but I really like this story.

*Underfell*  
Sans' brother was calling him again and had found him asleep at his station. Papyrus woke him up and when Sans realized that it was his brother that had woken him up he panicked. He tried to tell his brother he was sorry when he spotted something behind him and before he knew it the thing had moved and swallowed the two of them whole. Whatever it was had spit them back out somewhere neither of them recognized. Eventually a figure clad in blue showed up and they found out where they were.

*Underswap*  
Sans and Papyrus had been on a walk to see Alphys when they had suddenly come face to face with a black figure. It moved to quickly to really see what it was and both of them tried and failed to run away from it. They landed somewhere and upon looking around found some familiar faces. It was the original Sans and the fells which both seemed to be even more pissed than usual.

*Swapfell*  
Sans and Papyrus had just had to deal with some monsters that had tried to break in. Papyrus just shrugged it off like he usually did but Sans was still pissed off about it. He was currently heading to the dump with Papyrus in tow to see if there was something to help protect their house. However when they got there a black figure attacked them and before either could summon their magic to defend themselves they were both pulled into the dark. The next thing they knew they sat up from the ground with headaches and a lot of questions. A few minutes later they heard yelling and footsteps then saw the faces of the original Sans, the swaps, and the fells. Even more questions came to them in the two seconds it took to realize that they weren't in their own world.

*Undertale*  
Sans first found the fells then the swaps then the swapfells and all of this left him feeling very confused and tired. He walked to his house on the surface where his brother was waiting for him to come back. He opened the door and he walked in while the others trailed after him. Papyrus poked his head out of the kitchen, "Sans why are the alternate versions of us here?"

"That's what I'd like to know." He turned to the others and they all looked at him waiting to heard if he had a theory as to how they got here. "Make yourselves at home, I have something I need to check on." With that he turned on his heel and walked to a door that lead to the houses basement. He looked at the information that was recorded on the machine and wrote a few things down. The only thing that could explain the readings was that someone had pulled the others from their worlds and into his.

He didn't know who or why but he was going to figure it out. He checked the time and upon seeing that he was going to be late if he didn't leave now he shoved very thing into a corner of his desk and went up the stairs to tell the others he was leaving. He told his brother he was leaving and told the others that he would tell them what he came up with when he got back. He teleported into the woods that spread out across the land between town and Mt. Ebbot. This was going to be a long night for him.

*back at the house*  


The others ate the spaghetti Papyrus gave them and wondered why Sans had left in such a hurry. Eventually blueberry asked and Papyrus shifted the scarf on his neck slightly. "He's gone a lot but I never know where he's going, I've asked Grillby and anyone else he might visit but they all say they haven't seen him."  


Yet more questions popped into their heads and they all made mental notes to ask him when he got back. They all waited for hours for Sans to get back but they all eventually nodded off before he got back. When Sans did get back it was about three in the morning and he was exhausted like always. Somehow he still found the energy to get them all blankets and cover them so they wouldn't freeze. He also turned up the thermostat then he went to his room to get some sleep before they all woke up.

The next morning they all woke up to sunlight hitting their faces and woke up around the same time. They took a second to see that they were all covered in a blanket but they were all soon wide awake. They asked each other who had covered them with blankets and by process of elimination concluded it was Sans. However he wasn't up yet so they couldn't ask him and none of them wanted to wake the, likely, exhausted skeleton.

Everyone either helped put the blankets away or made breakfast and Sans was up about an hour later. He had a metallic and rotten taste in his mouth so he drank some coffee but didn't eat anything. Once he had his second cup of coffee he told the others what he thought happened to them. "So you guys were likely dragged here by someone though by who exactly I'm not sure." Sans was still exhausted and the dark circles under his eyes were slightly worse then they were.

They all thought he looked like shit but none of them said anything and he was glad they didn't. Papyrus had some errands to run so he left Sans and the alternate versions of them alone. Sans knew how they could all be with what was going on so he found something for all of them to focus on.

They all appreciated it and were all happy with the activities that Sans had picked out for them. While they were doing that Sans though of a way to get them back home but ended up falling asleep. None of them had noticed for some time but they all individually stopped what they were doing for a brief second to see him sleeping.

They all silently smiled to themselves when they saw it because they were glad he was sleeping. Well as most of them wouldn't admit it they liked Sans because he might be lazy sometimes but he was a good guy. They had all come to this world once before and even then he made then feel welcome until they could get back. That was before they got to the surface but being on the surface hadn't made him any less thoughtful.

Eventually Papyrus came back and Sans woke up at the sound of the door opening. It was about four in the afternoon so they all just stayed in the house doing whatever. Sometimes they would watch TV or play a game like cards against humanity or just sit around talking. Eventually it was ten at night and Sans left the house again without a single explanation as to what he was doing or when he would be back.

This time Swapfell Sans was able to stay awake until Sans got back but the others were once again asleep. Swapfell Sans was surprised to see that Sans seemed to be hurt and looked pale even for a skeleton. He pretended to be asleep after getting a decent look at Sans and heard the skeleton once again covering them all in blankets. Swapfell actually drifted off to sleep soon after despite wanting to wake everyone up and tell them what he saw.

They woke up to light hitting their faces again and they were all groggy but Swapfell was awake in less than a second after remembering what he had seem. "I just remembered I saw Sans after he came back last night." Everyones attention was on him quicker than you could blink and he started telling them what he had seen. "He came in and he was pale and he looked like he was hurt but he just put a blanket on everyone and went to his room."

The fells looked at each other, the swaps fidgeted a little, the Swapfells seemed to think about the situation, and original Papyrus seemed very worried about his brother. They all agreed to wait until Sans woke up to ask him what was going on and in the mean time made as little noise as possible. They didn't want to wake him up until he decided to get out of bed but none of them would be surprised if he didn't get up the whole day.

Sans eventually woke up at around twelve and this time he actually ate something. The others watched him the whole time for any signs that he was hurt and were surprised to not find anything showing he was hurt what so ever. Sans walked around like he usually did and never even remotely mentioned that he was in pain which baffled the others.

Eventually Sans left to go talk to Toriel about something she was curious about which gave the others a chance to discuss what had been on their minds since early that morning. Blueberry was the first to ask what everyone was wondering, "I thought he was hurt why does he seem like he's fine?"

Swapfell was baffled, "I know what I saw but I can't explain why he would be fine the next day. He doesn't show the slightest sign of being in any pain."

At this point Underfell Papyrus seemed to have a thought that he was reluctant to say out loud. "Maybe we should look in his room." All of them looked at him wide eyed and at a loss for words. "Look the only reason I'm saying we should is because there might be something in there that can tell us what's going on."

They all thought about it for a minute and it made sense that he might hide whatever it was that had healed him in his room. Swapfell had seen him go into his room and he didn't come out until the next morning so he had plenty of time to do something to heal himself. After a few minutes they all decided to look through his room but they were reluctant while they did so.

When they got up the courage to open his door they were surprised to see that it was clean unlike his room was in Snowdin. After a minute of looking around in wonder at the clean room they looked everywhere they could to find something incriminating.

Eventually Underfell Sans or red found a box full of medical supplies that likely had a hand in healing Sans. They didn't find anything else but what they didn't know was that Sans kept everything that would have given them any clue about what was happening was hidden. It was all in a small hiding place that could be accessed by a piece of false ceiling at the top of his closet.

However the others had no clue that the hiding place existed so the medical supplied were the only things that they found. However they didn't ask Sans about it because none of them even knew how to bring it up. All they could do was keep a close eye on Sans and make sure he ate and slept whenever he needed to.

One day they were all going to go out into town and look at everything because none of them had seen the surface before. All of them had yet to finally get to the surface and they wanted to see what it was like. Sans had opted to stay behind and lay on the couch watching TV. The others were reluctant but they agreed and left Sans to rest at home.

The others had been to several shops and looked at several interesting items. They had been to the mall, a few small locally owned shops and even went to the arcade. Over all the day had been fun and they all forgot about their worries about Sans for a time.

When it was time for them to get back they were confident that Sans would be there waiting on the couch likely asleep. They walked back to the house when it was night and the stars were out which they all took several minutes to admire. When they finally got back to the house they opened the door feeling happy and relieved to be back.

When they looked in the house however the smiled on their faces disappeared and were replaced with looks of horror. All of the furniture was torn up and some of it was smashed or flipped over, the walls looked like something had smashed into them pretty hard, and the floor was covered in pieces of glass from a broken window and remnants of the furniture.

The worst part was that Sans was no where to be found and there was nothing showing if he was okay or not. Papyrus called Undyne, Alphys, and Toriel explaining what happened and they all came over to see what it looked like for themselves. They looked in every room for even a shred of evidence as to what happened and didn't find anything. The three left after promising to look for Sans tomorrow and Papyrus was glad that someone would help look for him.


	2. Where Could He Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone likes the story so far!

The following days since Sans' disappearance they asked everyone in town if they had seen him, called the police, and checked everywhere around the house for dust that might belong to Sans. They didn't find anything but they were getting worried because it had been two weeks since he disappeared.

Undyne, Alphys, and Toriel checked on them everyday and helped them look into every lead they got as to where Sans might be. Eventually they all went to check in the woods for the fourth time since he disappeared. At this point the only thing they had was hope that they would find Sans but even their hope was starting to disappear.

They had been walking for about fifteen minutes when they heard something up ahead. They didn't know what it was but they were careful not to make any noise and as they got closer they heard voices.

"Can you believe that thing was able to do that?"

"No I didn't think anyone could do that but it's got a lot of people freaked out."

"Yeah I heard someone called it by what it's name is supposed to be and they got in huge trouble."

"What's it's name supposed to be again, well not that it matters, but it's funny to think that beast has a name."

"Yeah it's name is Sans or something but the only thing it deserves to be called is a beast."

The two people that had been talking laughed then turned and started walking away and they all looked at each other then back at the people that had been talking. They all silently agreed to follow them and they made sure they didn't break a branch or move some rocks as they did so.

Some forty-five minutes later the people came to a building then stopped to get the doors open and went inside. They went to the doors and saw that there was a hand print scanner next to the door. They had come to far to turn back now so they thought of ways to get into the building. Then Swapfell Papyrus made a suggestion, "Why don't we see if we can get in from the roof?"

Underswap Papyrus thought for a moment, "It might work, we should at least try." With that piece of logic they all climbed a tree then jumped from the branches, and landed on the roof. They saw a door that they could get through but it also had a scanner next to it so they started trying to think of something else.

Just then luck seemed to be on their side because someone opened the door and walked to another part of the roof. They got to the door and stopped it from closing then they all went inside and closed it. They went down the stairs that were in front of them and wondered if they should check out the first or second floor first. They decided to check out the second floor and they quietly made their way through the hallways of the second floor.

They looked in every room they could find but didn't see any sign of Sans and were making their way back to the stairs to go to the first floor when they were stopped by a guard. They tried to use their magic but it seemed to deform when it hit the air. So they all got ready to punch the guy out when they saw him put his hands up.

"I'm not going to fight you, I'm here to help you."

Red was skeptical, "Yeah right."

"Your looking for Sans aren't you?"

They were all shocked and Underfell Papyrus was the first to speak, "How did you know that?"

"Look I don't like what's going on around here. Sans told me about you guys and told me what to do if you showed up. Your in danger I need to get you guys out of here as soon as possible."

Underswap Papyrus was getting a little angry at this guy, "We're not leaving without Sans."

The guy sighed and looked at them with sad eyes, "Sans didn't think you would go looking for him. He said that even if you did you would probably give up on him and leave him here. I can tell that no amount of talking would get you guys to change your minds, but you can't help him right now, you need to leave." They all reluctantly nodded and the guard waved for them to follow him and they did. There were several times when he had them stop and directed guards to another part of the building. He would have them travel long complicated paths to make sure they weren't seen. 

None of them wanted to leave Sans but they had no choice at this point so they did the only thing they could do. The guy lead them through the forest because none of them knew where to go but they didn't get out of the forest. They were stopped by a group of about twenty to twenty-five with one particularly interesting character at the front of the group. The one at the head of the group was the only one that spoke out of the whole group. "Oh Allen you just had to help them didn't you. Well we can't just let you leave now can we? Beast," He said the last word to someone behind him.

Soon enough there was the clanking of chains and the group behind the man parted to let whoever was walking toward them through. The others were only able to see who it was when the crowd had completely parted and they were in front of the group. They stopped at the mans side and the others were horrified to see who it was the man had called beast.

It was Sans and he had manacles on his wrists and ankles and the manacles on his wrists were connected by a short chain that made it so his hands were in front of him. The manacles on his ankles had a similar chain but it was just long enough so he could walk.  


That wasn't even the worst of it because his shirt was missing so they could see his ribs. His ribs were bend and twisted and cracked with a red liquid coming out of the wounds. His right arm and left leg weren't in the best shape either but he wasn't limping like others would expect. His eye lights were gone but he wasn't angry, instead he seemed to be broken, like he didn't have any will of his own anymore.

Not only that but Sans' whole appearance was different. He stood on the balls of his feet, he had a tail, and the phalanges on his hands and feet ended in claws. His hood was also pulled over his head but if it was down there would be two small bumps on the top of his head that looked strangely like dog ears were in the middle of forming. His smile was gone and two teeth on the top of his jaw looked like fangs.

Without looking at him the man told Sans what to do. "Step closer to them."

Sans walked halfway to them and he didn't show any emotion but he did seem slightly reluctant. In truth Sans was, even though he had been trained to follow every order he was given by the man that was now behind him, he was trying to stop himself from doing what he was told.

"Kill them." The man said with a flat tone. Sans took a step forward but it was obvious to everyone that he was trying to stop himself because he didn't take another step. His legs tried to carry him forward but he leaned away slightly as if his legs had a mind of their own and he was trying to regain control.

"Did you not hear me? Kill them." The man had commanded him again and he took another step forward. However it seemed that Sans was putting up even more of a fight now because his eye lights seemed to be trying to flicker into existence. Not five seconds later Sans grabbed his right arm and closed his hand around it. A sickening crack could be heard but that was what Sans intended to happen.

The pain brought him back and his eye lights reappeared after a second and he smiled a little. Then the smile disappeared and he turned to the man that had been ordering him around just seconds earlier. The man took a step back and he seemed angry but he didn't say a word. Sans broke the chains connecting the manacles on his wrists and ankles and his tail moved a little to show that he was angry.

The man snapped his fingers and three of the people in the group behind him ran at Sans. Sans was quicker then them but waited until they were closer to react to the movement. One of them started to draw back a fist to punch him when Sans reacted and punched him in the stomach. He was knocked backward with the force and the other two tried to take him down but he grabbed one by the arm and threw them at the other.

Five more went after him and he ducked when one tried to punch him in the face. He tripped two of them and they fell and he took the time to take a few steps back and the other three tried to go after him at the same time to pin him. He ran out from under them and they just landed on each other and two more separated from the group.

Sans elbowed one in the stomach and kicked the other on the back of the head. Another came after him and tried to punch him in the face like some of the others had and he leaned backward and caught himself with his hands and did a flip while also kicking the other in the stomach and used them like a spring board to go faster.

The fight continued like this and he knew what they were going to do and how to beat every one of them. The thoughts that went through his head were, "It's okay I can do this, I know how to beat them, I can win." And he did know how to beat them, he did know how to win, but there was one thing he didn't take into account. They could go after the others.

One had acted like it was going after him but changed direction at the last second and went after the others. They couldn't get out of the way in time and he wasn't going to be able to stop the attack without one of them getting hurt, so he did the only thing he could do.

He ran to the others and got to them just in time to stand in front of the attack and take the hit. The others hadn't seen Sans jump in front of them but by the time they did it was to late. The monster that had attacked them had claws though not as sharp as Sans' claws. But they were sharp enough to deal a decent amount of damage and they slashed Sans across the chest.

The others were horrified but Sans paid no mind to the wound and punched the monster and sent them flying. There were six monsters left, not counting the one that had ordered Sans around, and they all came after him at the same time. He beat them and he smiled slightly but the smile fell immediately. Then a slow clap sounded in the space around them and Sans immediately looked at the only person he hadn't fought that was an enemy.

The man that had ordered Sans to kill the others slowly walked forward with his black clothes being slightly rustled by the breeze that started blowing from Sans' right. "That was impressive. I didn't expect you to break the chains on the manacles and defeat all of my guards. But your still just a beast that now needs to be put down."

Sans laughed a little but didn't say anything and the man attacked him and Sans dodged. Then the man quickly changed direction and punched his sternum and he flew a few feet and landed on his back. He quickly got up and the two attacked and dodged and counter attacked and everyone could tell that Sans was getting tired.

"You won't be able to last much longer beast." The man chuckled a little and Sans looked at him. Sans was barely able to stand let alone move but he had a few tricks up his sleeve. He smiled and closed his eyes for a second then quickly opened them and his left eye flared blue. The mans face fell and he looked both confused and angry then Sans ran at him with even more speed than before and the man was caught off guard.

Sans kept coming at him with more attacks and he was barely able to keep up and Sans knew he had to be a little faster. He used all of the strength he had and went even faster and eventually hit him square in the jaw. He hit a nearby tree and Sans walked over to him and looked him straight in the eyes. "You know I hate losing," was all the man could say.

"So do I, I just lost a long time ago." With those last words he knocked the guy unconscious and stood up then took a few steps back. He risked a glance at the others and they were all shocked so he quickly looked away. He knew they were probably going to be scared of him but he never planned on finding out. He turned to walk deeper into the forest but there were running footsteps behind him and someone grabbed his right arm.

He turned to see his brother Papyrus and he was confused as to the reason why he stopped him from leaving. "Sans please don't leave, we just found you, don't run away."

Sans stopped trying to pull his arm away and Papyrus let him go then Sans put his hand in his pocket. He tried to take another step backward but it was his left leg and it hurt to walk on but he was good at hiding pain so he stepped on it anyway. He didn't say anything so Papyrus was the one that talked. "Sans you've been missing for two weeks. We didn't know what happened or where you were, we've been looking for you this whole time."

After a second Sans spoke, "Bet you wish you hadn't come looking for me now huh?" Sans still didn't look at Papyrus and Papyrus seemed to get a little angry at what Sans said.

"I will never regret looking for you let alone finding you." Sans still didn't look at him but his eyes widened and he couldn't say anything no matter how hard he tried. "Sans I don't know what's going on but whatever it is it won't make me regret finding you."

Sans stood completely still for a minute then he laughed a little and finally looked Papyrus in the eye. "So I'm guessing you want to know what's going on huh?" Papyrus nodded and Sans smiled just a little. "Fine but first I want to go home and sit down for a few minutes." Papyrus smiled and Sans ran past all of them in a blur of blue, red, and white. "You guys are so slow, hurry up." Sans lead the way out of the forest and when they finally got home Sans was happier then he had ever been in his life.


	3. The Truth Can Be A Bitch

When they got inside Sans was the last to go inside because despite the fact that he was happy to be home he was worried. He knew what happened to the house before he was taken and he didn't know what state the house was in. He was surprised to see that everything was fixed and it looked like the scuffle had never happened.

Allen left after they got close to town and merely left with a wave to Sans and the others before disappearing into the night. Sans didn't know how the house looked like it did before it got torn up but he was glad the place was fixed up. Upon getting into the house Sans thought about sitting on the couch but decided not to because he was still bleeding.

He was going to just stand but the others kept trying to make him sit which got a little annoying though he didn't tell them that. Then Sans remembered that his ribs were out of alignment and that he needed to fix them. "I need to go to my room to take care of something."

"What do you need to do." Swapfell Papyrus asked with his head tilting to the side ever so slightly.

"I just need to take care of something." With that he walked up to his room with his tail dragging on the stairs slightly. Once he closed the door and locked it he grabbed a black towel from his closet and put it on the floor. He sat on the towel and began to carefully re-align his ribs and the bones in his right arm and left leg.

Sickening cracks rang throughout the room but he didn't pay attention to the sounds or the pain. He was thinking about what he was going to say to the others about what had happened. In the end he decided to tell them most of what happened because they deserved the truth after what they went through. He didn't want to add any unnecessary details so he would tell them what mainly happened.

He re-aligned everything and after cleaning everything up went back downstairs where the others were waiting. He sat in a recliner that was facing all of them and took a second to gather himself. "Alright if I'm going to tell you this I need you not to tell anyone else." They all looked at each other then nodded and Sans felt his tail move slightly. He immediately stopped it from moving anymore and looked at them then down at his lap where his clawed hands were.

"Alright, so I guess I'll start at the beginning of this whole mess. It started when I was about six," The others all seemed shocked that he had started the story at a time when he was so young. "Yes I was six, save your shock for the rest of the story. So I was six and at the time our parents were still alive but Papyrus wasn't born yet.

"Our parents names were Consolas and Constantia and they both worked a lot. One day they both had to work and Mom introduced me to a friend of hers. I don't remember his name but he's the guy that was dressed in black that told me to kill you all. Anyway I didn't like him from the get go but I didn't say anything to them and he ended up taking care of me that day.

"He took me to a place in new home and after he closed the front door I was knocked out. When I woke up I was strapped to a cold metal table and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get out. I eventually just looked around the room and saw medical tools and machines. I didn't have a clue as to what half of it was for but I didn't get to think about it because the guy came into the room right after.

"He was wearing black and he didn't say anything as he walked around the room getting things. Eventually he walked over to me and without so much as a word began to experiment on me." Everyone looked horrified and angry at the same time but Sans shrugged it off and kept telling the story. "It hurt like hell but I couldn't do much and eventually it was over. I never told my parent what happened because before they came to pick me up he told me that if I said anything about the experiments they would kill them.

"So I kept my mouth shut and no one knew anything about what was going on. Mom dropped me off there everyday because she and dad had work so I didn't have the best time there. It went on like that for two years until Papyrus was born so they didn't drop me off there for a while.

"That didn't stop them from experimenting on me though. Instead they made me sneak out in the middle of the night and if I didn't, well, let's just say they weren't going to be happy. Eventually mom went back to work so she dropped me off with Papyrus but they didn't need to experiment on Papyrus if they had me so they left him alone.

"Some three months after that I started to teleport, then a year later I was able to use the Gaster Blasters, then about six months after well I turned into what I am now. It hurt like hell when I transformed but they didn't care what happened to me. They actually found out I can take a lot more damage in this form so they had me change everyday so they wouldn't kill me.

"About a month later our parents died so I took care of Papyrus but I didn't have any money so we made a deal. They gave me money to take care of Papyrus if I did whatever they said. They eventually started training me to fight and because I was so fast I was able to beat them pretty easily. Eventually they realized that if they could control me completely they could turn me into a weapon.

"They started training me to do whatever they told me to do without hesitation but it didn't always work. Humans turned up before that but they didn't bother with them until one came after they had been training me for a while. They made me kill the human and I tried not to but in the end I did."

"But I thought Asgore killed all of the humans." Papyrus said obviously confused.

"He killed five of them, I killed the sixth human and the humans soul just showed up at his doorstep. Asgore didn't know who did it and everyone just assumed he was the one that killed them. Anyway after that I was experimented on more and eventually the kid came around. The experiments stopped for a week but they resumed soon after and they've happened everyday since."

"I remember that week you didn't take naps during the day and you didn't have those dark circles under your eyes." Papyrus seemed to be thinking about it for a minute but Sans interjected before he did.

"Oh that reminds me, I don't just take naps because I'm lazy, I mean that's part of it but I take naps because the experiments take a lot out of me. I sleep so I heal faster, if I didn't take naps so much it's likely that I would have dusted either way."

At that point all of them were shocked and they also felt like complete assholes. They had all gotten on Sans' case once or twice about how much he sleeps during the day. Now that they knew the real reason why he did that they all felt awful about it.  
"Look I don't blame any of you for telling me to sleep less, it's not like you knew. I never wanted you to know but because of what happened you deserve to know after what you've been through."

"What we've been through what about you? You were experimented on for years and whenever you weren't being experimented on people bugged you when all you were trying to do was heal so you wouldn't die." Blueberry seemed angry and everyone including him were surprised by his outburst. They all murmured in agreement to the statement however and Sans was confused and a little touched that they felt so strongly about it.

All of the skeletons from different universes were appalled that the skeleton that had been so welcoming when they came here had gone through that. You would never be able to guess from how nice and carefree he was. Most people thought he was lazy and never did anything for anyone but he was actually really considerate when you were feeling down.

It was a wonder how he could smile and even laugh despite everything he had been through. Sans realized that they were all over thinking it and decided to talk again. "Look I'm fine it's just that some of the things that happened were less than pleasant."

They were all silent until Swapfell Papyrus decided to ask a question that had been on his mind for half of the story. "What experiments did they do on you?" Sans didn't react to the question except for shifting slightly.

"I have something that can answer that better than me. Hang on." He got up and went to his room and opened the hiding place on top of his closet. He took out a box that wasn't labeled and looked like two others in the space. He knew which one was which without having to look in them so he just grabbed in, closed the hiding place, and went back to the others.

While he was walking he remembered the manacles that were still on his wrists and ankles but decided to get them off later. He set the box on the ground next to him and opened it then quickly leafed through the files and found the one he was looking for. "These files have information about the experiments they did. Some of the experiments happened over a long period of time so some of them have more information then the others."

They all wanted to know the contents of the files but didn't know what to do so Sans opened the file he had in his hands. "I don't think you want to see the pictures in these things and the stuff in these things can be complicated. I'll just read it so you all know what's in them without possibly missing one."

They didn't know if Sans should do that because the experiments were done to him but he just read it like it was something from a book you knew wasn't real. He read only a few of the files and all of them were beyond horrified at what was in the files. Sans just kept reading and seemed to be the least affected by the contents as he kept reading.

the swaps were holding onto each other for comfort, the fells thought their universe was full of flowers and butterflies compared to this and the Swapfells had a similar thought, well as Sans' brother was close to tears. However they all wanted to beat the shit out of the ones that had done that to him.

They all eventually realized that the manacles were still on Sans and they all got angry when they looked at them. Papyrus remembered some of the dates that Sans repeated on the pages and he wished he hadn't. Several of them were on his birthday or days that Sans had brought him somewhere he wanted to go. There was even dates from when the others came from their universes.

The files said Sans had been electrocuted, tortured, and several other things they didn't care to know about. They could only imagine how that felt and they got more unsettled by the second. By the time Sans was done reading the files it was late but all of them were far from sleep.

They were all willing to never go to sleep again if it meant Sans didn't have to go through any of that again. Then Sans curled in on himself a little and his face contorted in pain and the others immediately went into panic mode. They all asked if he was okay and Sans smiled a little but it was a forced smile.

"I'm fine. It's just that something's finally catching up with me."

"What do you mean?" Red asked while forcing himself to calm down.

"Remember when that guy in black said I wouldn't be able to last much longer when I was fighting him?" They all nodded. "Well he was right. I was hardly able to stand but I can do this thing if I'm in a tough situation like that. I can use my emotions to make it so I can keep fighting, I'm literally running on emotions alone. When I do that it hurts me some time after I stop using it and it suddenly happened now."

Their panic was renewed but Sans just grabbed the box with the files back in order, got out of the chair, and walked up the stairs to his bedroom. He was slightly shaky at first but he regained his balance and started walking without a problem. He said good night to them all then went in his room and closed the door though he didn't lock it.

He replaced the box in the hiding space then crawled into bed without even trying to get the manacles off. The others remained downstairs and talked to each other about what Sans had told them. They went to sleep several hours later but all of them held a blanket or pillow close to them before closing their eyes.


	4. Not So Happy After All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans is having a bad time

They all woke up at ten in the morning and were still tired from what happened just hours before. They all got up, put the blankets and pillows away and either turned on the TV to find something to watch or made breakfast. They soon realized that Sans was still in his room and, likely, asleep. They decided that someone should go check on him and Red was the one chosen to do it.

Red walked up the stairs and entered the room but was quiet so he wouldn't wake Sans up so he closed the door with a soft click. The room was dark and when his eyes adjusted he saw Sans sleeping on his bed. Red stood there for a minute wondering if he should wake Sans up but decided not to.

Sans shifted and he thought he was going to wake up but he stilled and continued sleeping. Red sighed then left the room as quietly as he had entered feeling glad that Sans was sleeping. Papyrus busied himself with cleaning the kitchen and when he had cleaned it twice he sat down to watch TV. None of them were paying attention to what was on the TV and were lost in their own thoughts.

At around one-thirty Sans woke up in his dark room and thought he was back at the lab in the forest. When he realized he wasn't he signed in relief and rubbed his eye sockets. He wondered what to do now that he was awake when he realized that he was hungry.

Normally he wouldn't hesitate to get some food and maybe watch some TV but he was hesitant. He didn't know if the others were scared of him and he didn't want to find out but knew it would happen eventually. He got up and heard the chains on his manacles clink but paid it no mind and slowly made his way to the door.

He took a deep breath then let it out and opened the door then walked downstairs. He didn't pay attention to the others but even if he wanted to the hood on his jacket obscured his vision. He went into the kitchen and grabbed some food and got a glass of water.

He ate in the kitchen and wondered what he should do after he was done. Should he go back to his room or stay in the living room with the others? He was putting his dishes in the sink when he heard something behind him and he turned around.

He saw that it was blueberry and his immediate thought was to get out of the kitchen but he stopped himself. He couldn't avoid them forever so he might as well face them now but he didn't want to scare them. He just put his hands in his pockets and looked to the side waiting for blueberry to do whatever he was doing.

Instead he just stared at Sans and when neither of them said anything blueberry decided to break the silence. "Um, do you feel better?" Sans looked at him but quickly moved his gaze back to whatever he had been staring at before.  


"I'm fine, I'm used to it." Blueberry seemed saddened by the statement but he smiled anyway.

"Why don't you come into the living room?" After not getting an answer from Sans for a minute or two he took a step forward and grabbed Sans' arm. He lightly tugged on him and after a second Sans walked forward and blueberry lead him into the living room.  


He lead Sans to the chair he had sat in last night which was vacant and had him sit there. He sat there for a second feeling awkward and pulled his legs onto the chair. He sat and watched the TV and waited for someone to do something but everyone seemed to be watching what was on the TV with great interest.

He turned his attention to the TV and started watching the movie on the screen. The movie was about two people being experimented on and they both became friends. They comforted each other and helped each other through it and eventually they both got out and lived normal lives.

Everyone kept glancing at Sans the entire time and they thought about changing the channel several times but Sans never noticed. He was remembering something else that he hadn't told the others about the experiments. He kept thinking about it and didn't even realize when the TV was turned off. Eventually Swapfell Sans tried to snap him out of it but when he didn't respond he shook Sans slightly. Sans was pulled out of his thoughts and he looked at Swapfell and he seemed slightly worried.

"Are you okay, you've been staring at nothing for half an hour."

Why do people ask if your okay when your obviously not. "I'm fine just zoned out I guess." Swapfell didn't seem convinced but he didn't press the matter and Sans was glad for that.

"Papyrus wanted to talk to you, he's in the kitchen." Swapfell walked off and Sans got up and went to the kitchen. He saw Papyrus talking to blueberry but when they saw him there they immediately stopped talking and smiled at him. Papyrus asked what Sans wanted for dinner and Sans just shrugged.

At the lab he was only feed once every other day so he was fine with whatever they made. Well as long as it was edible but even if it wasn't he probably would have been fine with it. Papyrus had been taking a cooking class so he was a lot better at cooking which was good for not only him but the other skeletons in the house as well.

Papyrus made cheeseburgers likely because it was one of Sans' favorite foods. He put a lot of ketchup on it but he had stopped drinking ketchup when they got to the surface. He talked to the others about normal things but his mind wasn't completely on the conversation.

He was still bothered by what he had been thinking about during the movie and it was bothering him. Later that night when he went to his room he thought about going to sleep but knew he couldn't. He decided to teleport to the woods in the underground and hopefully clear his mind.

There was somewhere specific he wanted to visit in the Snowdin forest though. All of the trees in the Snowdin forest were pine trees but deep in the forest there was one that was different. It looked like a Blue Jacaranda from the surface but the tree wasn't just special because it was one of a kind in the underground. The tree was about half a kilometer from the lab he used to be experimented at.

He liked to visit the tree for several reasons but the most important reason was because of the spot it had grown from. He visited the tree a lot even when he went to the surface and had to deal with the humans. Honestly he didn't like most humans but you could always find one or two that were really nice to monsters.

He climbed up the tree with surprising swiftness. He wouldn't have been able to do it that fast if he was still being experimented on. He sat on one of the branches that had a lot of flowers and leaned against the trunk of the tree. He just sat there and smiled to himself the whole time but he had to leave an hour later. He never wanted to leave but he knew he couldn't leave the others alone for a long time so he left.

He teleported to his bedroom and took one of the boxes from his hiding place. He looked at one of the files in the box and looked at the person smiling in the photo. After a few minutes he put the file box back and finally crawled into bed to go to sleep.

The next day Sans was still in his room at five in the afternoon and Swapfell Papyrus was the one who went to check on him. He opened the door a little and there was a blue light for some reason and he opened the door wider to see what it was. What he saw had him freaking out and calling for the others at the top of his metaphorical lungs. The others ran up the stairs and all of them stopped at the door for a moment to process what was going on.

Sans was on his bed hugging his legs to his chest with his eye blazing blue and he was trembling. None of them had a clue what to do and it took them a second to realize that he was mumbling. They all inched closer to hear what he was saying and after getting a few inches closer they heard it.

"It hurts, make it stop, I just want it to stop, please make it stop." Sans didn't know what was going on around him at all. He was in the lab, in his cell with another person that was trying to calm him down.

The door to the cell opened and the man in black who they refereed to as the head researcher looked at them in disgust. Without a word he went into the cell and grabbed the other person in the cell by their shirt. The other person begged and pleaded to stay and help Sans but the head researcher didn't listen.

Sans looked up to see his fellow captive being dragged away and forgot about everything but the person being forced to leave the cell. Sans tried to use his magic to stop him but it dissipated immediately and Sans got up and tried to stop him. The door closed before he could stop them and he tried to get the door open.

"Leave him alone!"

He began to pound on it and his emotions were getting out of control. He knew that his emotions were dangerous and if he lost control he didn't know what he would do. The next thing that was heard was a loud and echoing crack filling the air, then another, and another.

Sans felt his bones shift, and break, and reform into different shapes and knew every little thing that changed. The head researcher had heard the sounds and stopped dragging the other experiment down the hall. He walked back to the cell and opened it with the one he had been dragging close behind.

Upon looking into the cell the other had run into the cell and gotten on their knees to see what was wrong. "Sans, Sans can you hear me? It's me Arvie, I'm here, it's okay."

Sans slowly looked at the boy in front of him and recognized him even in his pain filled state. "Arvie?"

Arvie nodded and Sans calmed down and the transformation stopped after an extra minute. When it was done the head researcher had a smile fitting for a mad scientist and walked into the cell. His smile fell and he grabbed the barely conscious skeleton and took him out of the room. He closed the door with Arvie pounding on the door as Sans had done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff hanger anyone?


	5. Reliving The Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters kind of short

Sans had been muttering unsettling and sometimes broken sentences while the others tried to think of what to do. It wasn't long before Sans used his magic to attack something but they all knew it wasn't them he was trying to hit.

Sans' magic dispersed quickly enough and soon he had shouted one short sentence. "Leave him alone!" The blue light grew brighter and Sans was breathing heavily and didn't show any sign of stopping. All of them didn't want to touch him for fear of setting him off again.

Then there were loud snaps and cracks and they all looked to see that Sans bones were breaking and putting themselves back together. It was terrifying and they all felt their souls pulse faster as they watched this display of sheer terror. Then he calmed down slightly and a few minutes later he was back to the state they had first seen him in.

Sans was in another memory and this was a few months later when Papyrus had been born. Sans hadn't fought with them when they took him away from the room he had put Papyrus in. Allen was the one watching his baby brother so he knew he would be in good hands.

He was taken to the experimentation room and had been injected with determination once again. He was also given several other substances and the head researcher was seeing how he reacted to them. He tried hurting Sans by breaking his arm and it healed itself.

He broke forty more of Sans' bones and they all healed but it took longer for some of them. Sans was in pain the whole time and soon enough was put in his cell with Arvie. They had both been experimented on that day and neither of them could move at all.

Sans was healing and was able to move soon enough and about an hour afterward was taken to the training room to fight more of the guards in the building. He was used to this after two months of training but it didn't mean that he liked it what so ever. He beat them all fairly easily and was taken back to his cell after being chained up.

Arvie was doing better by the time he got back to the cell and they quietly talked to each other until Sans was taken back home. He lived through the experiments that happened over the course of a month and it was like reliving it all over again.

He had been tortured by having his bones snapped and twisted into unnatural shapes to see how certain things reacted when he was in pain. He had been burnt to see how things reacted to extreme heat, he had been put in tanks full of water to see what happened under high levels of pressure. He was electrocutes to see how things reacted with high amounts of electricity

The only one that had been there to calm him down and perhaps stopped him from giving up all together was Arvie when his baby brother wasn't with him. Eventually his visions locked onto a specific day that Sans would never forget.

Sans and Arvie had been taken out that day to train and had both been injected with determination again that day. Arvie didn't look good and Sans wanted to do something but couldn't under the watchful eye of the head researcher.

Allen had been left to watch them because he was the strongest out of all of the guards despite his age. He was a little younger than Sans but older than Arvie so he was pretty young to be that strong. Sans and Arvie didn't train that day so the three of them just talked or played small games.

Allen had been sleeping under a nearby tree when Arvie suddenly collapsed and Sans caught him before he hit the ground. Sans didn't know what was going on and called Allen who woke up quickly and ran over. Neither of them knew what was going on but that didn't stop them from trying to help.

Arvie grabbed Sans' arm with what little strength he had and Sans looked at him on the verge of tears. "Sans promise me you won't let them take my dust back to the lab." Sans didn't know what to do or say so he just nodded and Arvie smiled.

He let go of Sans' arm and he turned to dust with a smile on his face as Sans held him. Sans yelled a cry of pain and anger because his friend was gone and he hadn't done anything to help him. Sans and Allen had buried his dust under the frozen dirt of Snowdin and they walked back to the lab.

Allen told the head researcher that he had collapsed while training and turned to dust. The head researcher didn't ask why they hadn't brought his dust back to the lab and instead looked for the reason as to why he died. Sans had been numb that whole time and hadn't even realized what was going on in the memories or in real life.

In reality he was screaming from pain and agony then loss when Arvie died in the memories. Soon after that Sans fell to the side on his bed with his head resting on the pillow. Slowly the blue light disappeared and Sans stopped shaking and after the memories stopped he fell asleep.

The others were scared but not of him, they were scared of whatever he had seen that make him go into that state to begin with. They all had a pretty good idea but none of them said it out loud for fear of waking the poor traumatized skeleton.

They put everything that had been knocked down back where it was, covered Sans with a blanket, and walked out of the room. Once out of the room they all went downstairs to the living room and sat down but left Sans' chair vacant.

After several minutes of suffocating silence Underfell Papyrus spoke. "What the hell just happened?" He was quiet and talked slowly as if wondering if it was really over and the only one that answered was Underswap Papyrus.

"What we just saw was a fraction of how much pain he's in because of all this." They all agreed in their minds but they were still scared to make to much noise.

"I don't get it, some of us are alternate versions of him and yet we don't have a clue about what he's gone through." Red said wondering how anyone can go through that and act like everything was okay for so long.

All of them were close to tears but some of them were to proud to admit it and instead closed their eyes or looked down. They talked about what they had seen for two hours and when all of them fell asleep they clutched onto pillows and blankets like before. However this time all of them were silently crying while they drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans went through a lot


	6. Your Walking In The Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't the best one I've written

Sans woke up while all of the others were still asleep and remembered what he had seen. He bolted from his bed and when he realized that he wasn't at the lab he calmed down. He looked around his room and saw that his room wasn't messed up like it usually was after that happened.

Then something occurred to him and he quietly walked out of his room to see everyone, including his brother, sleeping in the living room. He saw that they were all holding onto either a blanket or pillow and curled up a little.

He knew that they had seen or at least heard what had happened to him and he mentally scolded himself. He teleported outside and walked to the woods to take a walk and have a conversation with himself.

"Your so stupid why do you always manage to mess everything up. Well it's not like I try to mess everything up, it just happens. It doesn't matter if it's on purpose or not, if they were in the room you could have hurt them. They would be a lot better off if they hadn't helped you leave the lab."

Sans tried telling himself that the others still cared about him but a part of him told him he was clinging to false hopes. He didn't think they would get to the surface and they did but it could all reset at any time. He was surprised anyone had ever put up with him let alone for how long Papyrus had with how fucked up he is.

Some time during his walk he had stopped paying attention to where he was going and found himself deep in the woods. He was thinking about what to do now when he heard the trees around him rustle. He would have chalked the movement up to the wind blowing the trees except there wasn't any wind to move the branches.

Suddenly four figures charged him and he was barely able to get out of the way. He scolded himself for the third time that day and this time it was for not paying attention. The figures came at him again and he moved out of the way and brought them into the light to see who was attacking him.

They were some of the guards from the lab and he got angry even though they hadn't really done anything yet. They came at him again and he kicked the first on in the stomach then tripped two of them and slammed the other against a tree.

They got up again and he beat the one he had kicked in the stomach. He finally blacked out from getting hit so much but he was still breathing. The two he had tripped came back with a vengeance but Sans was ready for them. He ran for the one of them and knocked them to the ground with enough force to make them black out immediately.

Sans jumped into the air before the other got to him and on his way back down kicked the other and they flew into a tree. The last one had actually slammed Sans into the nearest tree and he heard his bones crack. He kicked them away and punched them several times in different places with the last punch hitting him in the face.

They were all either knocked out or laying on the ground in pain which, Sans knew, wasn't how you wanted to spend your night. He could have killed them right then and there but he just turned and walked away. The head researcher had made him kill people before and he wasn't going to kill anyone if he didn't have to.

He eventually found his way back to the house and teleported to his room and sat on the bed. His spine and ribs were cracked on his back from being slammed into the tree but he didn't care. He just took off his jacket and sat in the dark for several minutes.

He used his magic to heal the cracks and made a mental note to get the blood off before the others saw. The blood was really determination but he just called it blood so no one would question why he had determination coursing through his bones.

He looked at all the permanent cracks and small chips on his bones from years of being experimented on. He had them on his legs but they were small and you couldn't see them unless you got really close and were looking for them. His tail moved and he stopped it from moving like he had every other time it moved.

He had found that his tail moved and showed how he was feeling so he trained himself to not let it move. It made it so the head researcher couldn't get under his skin by making him angry.

Sans walked over to his bed and laid on his side and went to sleep after a few minutes. He had nightmares all the time about the resets or the experiments but this time it was a dreamless sleep.

The others woke up at ten and this time they didn't check on Sans feeling like one move would wake him up. They made very little noise and they didn't even turn on the TV to watch a show. Instead they read a book or played board games that didn't require them to talk.

Sans' brother Papyrus was wondering how he hadn't realized that Sans had gotten like this. Everyone wondered why they hadn't realized that this was happening the last time they came here. Red had a point when he had said that some of them were alternate versions of him. They all thought they should have realized that something wasn't right with him.

They knew that Sans must be feeling pretty terrible right now but none of them knew how to comfort him. None of them have ever had to deal with something like this before. They all tried to think of ways to help him but ended up drawing a blank.

In the end they just decided to let Sans sleep and see if he was feeling better when he woke up. They had thought about going out but no one of them wanted to leave Sans alone so they stayed in the house and waited for Sans to come out of his room.

Eventually Sans woke up but it was around four and Sans hadn't come out of his room. Sans stayed in his room and went over the files he had several times because he felt like he had to. He recognized several faces from the files as people he had been ordered to kill.

He read his parents files and stared at the words 'died without knowing anything about the experiments.' He never looked at his parents files because he didn't want to find out that they knew about what happened to him. If there was one good thing that had happened to him today it was finding out that his parents died not knowing what happened.

He put the files back and though back to when Arvie died like he often did when his mind wondered. He still blamed himself for not being able to save him and he hated himself for being more trouble then he would ever be worth. He had always been expecting to be attacked but he expected it even more because the head researcher was persistent.

He knew they would do anything to make sure the experiments never became public and that was why they had Sans kill people. He was what they used to 'terminate' threats to their operation. Sans had tried to stop himself every time but in the end he did because he was ordered to do so.

Before he knew it several hours had passed and he decided to take a walk and get some fresh air. He was beginning to like taking walks at night and he hadn't even realized it until he was outside. He took a long walk and he actually paid attention to where he was going.

He had been walking for about an hour when he spotted something through the trees. He walked over to it and as he got closer he realized that it was a black metal fence surrounding a building. He knew it wasn't the lab and he didn't know of any other buildings in the woods so this was odd.

He walked right up to the fence and saw that the building was old but still intact unlike the main gate. He walked through the gate that was hanging off it's hinges and looked around what he guessed was the yard. There was a bird bath to his left and what looked like a garden of flowers to the right.

He had no clue how the flowers had survived without someone to take care of them but he was no plant expert. He walked up the the front door and was going to knock when the door opened on it's own. His immediate thought was that he was now in a mystery movie but he walked through the door anyway.

Thankfully the inside wasn't like the lab and in fact looked more like a house than anything. He slowly walked in and kept looking around finding locked doors and dusty furniture. He wasn't sure what some of the stuff was but it was far from boring in his opinion.

After looking at everything he walked back out the front door and once he was past the gate he teleported to the house. He sat on his bed and thought of what to do now and decided to visit the tree he cared for so much.

He teleported again and smiled when he saw the tree about five yards from him. He climbed up the tree and sat on the same branch he had before. "Hey Arvie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans likes to avoid problems


	7. Old Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans isn't having fun

Sans went back to the house some time later to find that the sun had come up after a whole night. Sans had spent most of his time sitting on the branches of the tree. He only sat there for hours listening to the noises around him and looking at the flowers on the tree.

As he sat on the branch of the tree he thought back to when he had first seen the tree. He had been walking back home and decided to go to where he had buried Arvie. Where he was buried a tree had started growing but he knew it wasn't a pine tree growing there.

It looked different and Sans had sat there for some time looking at the little growing tree. Since then he had went there on his way to and from the lab to check on it. Sans knew trees didn't grow very fast but this one looking like a full grown tree in a year.

He had been very protective of the tree since the first day he saw it and that feeling had only grown since that day. He liked the flowers that grew on the tree and the way it seemed to glow whenever he went to visit it.

Sans had teleported to his room and actually decided to come out of his room despite what he feared might happen. He was surprised to see that they were all awake and some of them seemed worried about him. Papyrus ended up getting him food and some water while the others had him sit down in his chair.

They had even gotten him a blanket and wrapped it around him after he sat down. Sans didn't know how to feel about the others doing something like this after what they must have seen. However his soul felt lighter knowing that they still cared.

After they had all sat down they waited for someone to do something but the first one who did was Sans. "Okay what is it this time."

They were all shocked that he was still acting normal like nothing had happened. Red was the first one to answer, "You know damn well what it is, what happened to you?"

"Your going to have to be more specific then that. Asking what happened to me is a very broad statement."

"I'm talking about everything, you read those files like they were nothing then you went ballistic. You were mumbling then you shouted something then you yelled like there was no tomorrow. What the hell man?"

Sans thought about the best to explain this and his brain seemed to say fuck it because there was no way to really explain this. He just stood up from his chair, told the others to follow him, and walked out the front door. The others followed him wanting to know exactly what he was doing.

He was on the front lawn of the house and the others waited for him to say something. "If you want to know what happened to screw me up so much you have to see something. Grab onto me." They all grabbed onto his arms and he teleported to the woods in Snowdin and they let him go.

He walked further into the woods and they followed him without a word. About fifteen minutes later they got through the trees into a clear part of the woods. They looked and saw a building that looked similar to the one Sans had been held in before.

The others took a minute to look at the building and Sans waited while they did. After they were done Sans looked at the building with a look of nostalgia and pain. "This is the lab I used to be experimented at." They all looked from Sans to the building and back again.

Sans walked toward the building and they followed wondering why Sans had brought them here. He placed his hand on the scanner next to the door and it opened with a click. They walked through the doors and Sans walked through the halls expertly while looking at all of the objects and doors they passed.

They got to one room and Sans opened it and the others followed him into the dark room. Sans sent some of his magic into the air and the lights turned on and the room was flooded with light.

There were machines and tools everywhere in the room and most of it had spots of something red on it. The metal table in the room was the worst because it was covered in red. "This was the room I was in when they did the experiments."

They all looked at Sans but he just looked at the objects and machines in the room with a blank look in his eyes. Soon after they walked out of the room and went through several hallways to get to another. They walked into what looked like a cell with chains hanging off of two separate walls.

There were enough chains to hold two people but they didn't know why they would need so many chains to begin with. "This was the cell we were held in." They were all confused when he said we but they didn't say anything.

"The manacles on my wrists and ankles actually came from here and were moved to the other building. It was easier to keep one pair of manacles on me instead of taking one pair off and putting on another."

Sans didn't like being at the old lab whether he was with friends or not. The memories of what they did to him were far from gone and it didn't help with his flash backs. He wanted to get out of there but they still needed to see something that was important.

Sans went out of the room and they all followed while looking at everything they passed feeling more terrified every second they were there. Soon they came into another room that was much bigger then the other two rooms. "This is where they trained me to fight after they figured out what I could do."

They left the room after several more minutes of looking at the scratched walls and floor. Sans was the first outside of the building and he waited for them to get outside. "There's one more thing you need to see."

They followed him through the woods and Sans knew where they were going after traveling this same path every day for years. No one said anything the whole way and none of them saw it until they got out of the trees that hide the other so well.

When they finally saw it they all gasped and looked up at the tree that seemed to be glowing. Well as they all know it was impossible for a tree to glow they couldn't think of any other way to describe it.

Underswap Papyrus was the first to tear his eyes away from the tree and look at Sans. "Why did you bring us here?"

"This tree is different from every other tree in Snowdin. I used to come here every day before and after the experiments when it first started growing. After it was fully grown I came here everyday on the way back."

"But how did you find it in the first place?" Swapfell asked.

"There's more than one thing that makes this tree special. Not only is it one of a kind in the underground but the place it grew is special to." He paused for a moment to gather himself before he continued. "A monster was buried where it grew."

None of them said anything but their shock said volumes even though Sans wasn't looking at them. "I wasn't the only one being experimented on, there were two of us. The other monsters name was Arvie and he was my best friend.

"He came in a year after me and at first I didn't really care who he was. We were put in the same cell and eventually we started talking. He didn't have any parents and was brought in from the street. He could shape shift unlike other monsters so he was valuable to the head researcher.

"I didn't know how he could smile in that place but he did and I'll be honest at first I didn't like him. After we started talking though we became friends and I figured that he wasn't so bad after all. Soon enough we were helping each other out when the experiments were particularly bad.

"I probably would have ended it myself if he hadn't been there to stop me time and time again. Eventually he died because of the experiments and the last thing he asked me was to not let them take his dust back to the lab.

"Allen and I buried him and went back to the lab and I was taken to my cell while Allen told the head researcher he was dead. He smiled before he died and I still have no clue why he smiled like that. I couldn't do a damn thing to save him in the end and I hate myself for it."

Sans pulled up his left sleeve and showed them the scares that were there. "I'm fucked up no matter how you look at it but I've been trying to hide that for years. I could have killed you before and yet you guys are still willing to help me.

"I never thought anyone would want to help me after seeing what I am." He pulled his sleeve back over the scars and put his hands in his pockets. "I probably sound really cheesy right about now but I'm glad you guys didn't just bolt the second you saw me in this form. Hell I haven't changed out of this form once since I was taken over two weeks ago.

"Either way you don't treat me like other people do when they see this form which I wasn't expecting. I kept telling myself you'd hate me and eventually you'd leave without looking back." Sans felt tears threatening to spill out of his eye sockets and he looked at the ground.

"Thanks for sticking around." Everyone was surprised and touched that Sans had said that and Sans just looked up after the tears stopped. "Well that's enough of me being sappy for one day, let's go home." Everyone grabbed their respective brothers and teleported back to the house.

After they got back Sans let go of his brother and teleported to his room and sat in the dark. It wasn't long before he felt something in his soul and he summoned it into his hand. He looked to see the small purple flower in the center of it glowing brighter then usual.

The flower looked like the flowers on the tree that had grown where Arvie was buried. It had been a long time since the flower had done anything more then glow in his soul. "So your still here Arvie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel bad for the Sans


	8. Don't Let Others See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been dubbed the feels master!! I love my life.

The other skeletons in the house thought about the fact that Sans wasn't the only one that was experimented on. The fact that the other died showed that Sans could have turned to dust as well. However that had them questioning how Sans hadn't died and the other had.

There were several possibilities but they wanted to find out the real reason why. Yet despite their curiosity none of them wanted to upset Sans even more with their questions so they let it be for now. They all knew that Sans would tell them when he was ready to talk about it.

They also thought about how Sans had thought about killing himself several times. It was clear to all of them that they owed that kid Arvie a hell of a lot for what he did. It was a shame that he died, blueberry and Sans' brother Papyrus thought why would have been a good friend.

Sans stayed in his room staring at the flower that his soul encased like a piece of glowing blue glass. The flower had been glowing brighter and he knew that meant Arvie was happy. He wasn't always sure about what and there were several thing he could be happy about this time.

He put the soul in his rib cage and thought about something he hadn't thought of until now. The only ones that had seen him since he came back from the lab were the other skeletons. He didn't know if the others were even worried about him when he went missing.

He didn't think the others would have even given him a second thought considering the fact that they often found him annoying. He laughed at himself for thinking they might be worried about him after he disappeared. He stared out his window for several minutes before he crawled into bed to sleep.

He woke up the next morning feeling like he always did after a nightmare about the lab. He used to have nightmares about the resets but now they were only about the lab which wasn't the best option. He was sluggish that morning after having seen the old lab and remembering what those tools had been used to do.

Sans was surprised he hadn't gone completely out of control but he probably had the piece of Arvie in his soul to thank for that. It couldn't do much but sometimes it was just enough to stop his mind from caving in on itself.

He slowly got out of bed and stretched while his bones popped which he found very satisfying to hear. His back felt a lot better but it still hurt and it would for another day or two. The chains on his manacles clinked and he looked at them for a moment then opened his door.

He went downstairs and got some breakfast and ate while letting his mind wonder. He ended up thinking about his time at the lab and shook his head to get rid of the thoughts. He didn't want to go nuts and start attacking the microwave like it was the head researcher.

After he was done with his food Papyrus called for him from the living room and Sans turned on his heel to see what was up. He walked into the living room to see that Papyrus was on the phone and a look at the caller ID told him it was Undyne on the other end.

"Sans our friends were wondering if you are well enough to hang out today."

Sans weighed the pros and cons of the others seeing him at the current time and he decided that maybe he should. He shrugged, "Sure why not." Papyrus smiled and told Undyne that they would hang out with them. It wasn't long before the other skeletons were walking downstairs from the spare bedrooms they had.

The swaps were staying in a room with Papyrus but the others were in the large spare bedroom at the end of the hall. Sans hadn't thought it would be a good idea if anyone stayed in his room in case he went crazy again. Sans was always confused when he found them sleeping in the living room.

Papyrus told the lightly groggy skeletons that they were going to meet Undyne and the others later and Sans went up the stairs to go to his room. "Sans where are you going?" Papyrus asked not knowing why Sans would want to go back to his room.

"I'm going to change into my original form."

"Why don't you just go like you are now?"

"Because if the others see me like this they'll probably freak out." Sans had no clue why he was asking why he was going to change back to his old form.

"But wouldn't that hurt?" Asked Underfell Papyrus with a questioning look.

"Well it does but that doesn't really matter."

"Well if it hurts just stay in the form your in now." Swapfell Sans said like it was the most obvious thing ever.

"And how do you think the others will react?"

"I'm sure they'll be fine with it." Said Sans' brother with a reassuring look. Sans wasn't so sure but he decided that he might as well humor them.

"Fine I'll stay in this form." Some of them smiled but the fells and Swapfells exchanged unsure looks hoping Sans' Papyrus was right. Sans sat in his chair with his head on him hand and started watching TV. The others eventually went about doing whatever they wanted to do until it was time to go meet the others.

About three hours later it was time to head out to meet the others so the all got into the car. Sans had opted to literally run with the car so they could all fit better and no one would see him. He ended up doing just that despite the others saying that was unreasonable.

To the others surprise he kept up with the car and even ran ahead a few times and the other Sans' approved. They got there in about fifteen minutes and Sans stood next to the car while the others got out. They were at a park with plenty of trees and the best part was that no one was around.

They all walked towards the others who were already at the park and Sans felt like he was being watched. He shrugged it off and as the others walked to the others he stayed in the trees. He listened to the conversation which wasn't to hard because he wasn't that far away.

"Undyne, queen Toriel, human Frisk, Alphys, it is good to see you all." Said Papyrus in a very cheery voice.

"'Sup Paps how's it going?" Undyne said with her usual toothy grin.

They talked for several minutes before Frisk looked around and seemed confused. They went over to Papyrus and got his attention and started signing. 'Papyrus where's Sans?'

"Oh, Sans come over here!" He shouted in the direction Sans was in and for a brief moment he thought about not leaving the tree line. He shook his head a little then slowly walked out of the trees and stopped outside of the trees.

The others were shocked and a little scared and Sans knew those looks on their faces well. Sans looked to the side then took a step back and without a word walked back into the trees. He knew they would react like that but he had hoped that he would be wrong.

He walked through the trees to go to the car and just sit in the back seat until it was time to go. Then he heard something and before he knew it chains wrapped around him so he couldn't walk anymore. He tried pulling on them but a jolt of electricity went through the chains and shocked him.

He couldn't even yell or call for help because there was so much electricity going through the chains. He was able to handle electrocution from the experiments but he was blacking out. He wasn't going to be able to stay conscious for much longer but he could think enough to know who was doing this.

Someone stepped into sight and he looked up to see the head researcher looking at him with a piercing gaze. He tried to attack him but the chains stopped him from moving even an inch in any direction. Without a word he turned and Sans blacked out just as two other figures stepped into view.

One of the two figures had picked up Sans while the other replaced the chains on his manacles. As they were leaving Sans' phone fell out of his pocket but none of them noticed as they took him away.

*In the park*

Everyone stood there for several seconds after Sans left without saying anything. After what seemed like eternity to everyone there Alphys spoke. "W-what happened to him?"

All of the skeletons just shook their heads because well as they wanted to tell them what happened they promised not to. Everyone had noticed the manacles and they all thought about the look on Sans' face. It was a sad but knowing look then he just left and none of them knew what to say.

They hadn't been scared because of his appearance like Sans had thought they were. They were scared of what must have happened to make him look like he did when he walked out of the trees. Several minutes later the seven skeletons walked into the trees to try and find Sans.

They looked around several trees and five minutes later one of them saw something lying on the ground. They all walked over to the object and red was the one that picked it up. He saw that it was a phone with a blue case and when he pressed the power button to turn on the phone he saw another skeleton smiling in the picture.

He looked at the others and with sad eyes held up the phone to show them the picture. "This is Sans' phone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have to skip an update within the next few days... we'll see.


	9. Shit happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning people get pissed off

As the head researcher walked away with his experiment he thought about how much harder it was to capture him then he thought it would be. He thought they would catch him within three days of him getting out but it took longer then that. It had been almost a week since then and he had been getting irritated that his guards hadn't been able to catch him.

Now that he had his experiment back he was in a much better mood then he had been a short time ago. It wasn't that he hated his experiment completely like everyone thought he did. He had at first but after seeing how intelligent and surprisingly protected the skeleton was his opinion changed.

He admired him for how determined he was to protect the ones he cared about. He had been like that even before the experiments but now he had more power to do so. He enjoyed seeing what the skeleton was willing to do to protect the ones he cared about and so far he hadn't found his breaking point.

He smiled at the idea of trying to find out what broke the skeleton into pieces. They walked to a new lab that they had made after the old one had been found. They would have to slowly build this one up as time went on but it wasn't as annoying as having to move all of the equipment.

After they got into the building they brought Sans to his cell and chained him to the wall. After that the guards went to their posts and the head researcher went to get the equipment for the next experiment ready. He thought back to when this all started and why he had done this in the first place.

At first he did it to try to break the barrier like every monster had been hoping for. Then Constantia showed up asking him to take care of her child while she was at work and he seized the opportunity. He knocked the child out and after seeing how much he cared for his family threatened him.

Despite everything he put him through he still had a look of defiance in his eyes. After Arvie died that look was even more fierce and it was interesting what he did when he was like that. The head researcher didn't know where that look came from but he was interested in it.

When Arvie died he hadn't asked where his dust was because he had actually been slightly sad that he had died. He knew he would be sad if Sans died because he liked the skeleton not as a son but a good acquaintance. However he was a man of science and he wouldn't let his emotions get in the way of his work.

Back when Sans had worked for Gaster he had found out about the experiments despite Sans trying to stop him. That's why he had pushed him into the core even though he could have had Sans kill him. He wanted to be the one to kill Gaster because he was also a man of science.

Sans had found out that he had killed Gaster but he couldn't do much without risking his brother. In the end he just ruined everything he could so they had to fix just about everything in the building at least once. He was a tyrant when he had the motivation to do so.

The head scientist got all of the equipment ready for his experiments while he and been thinking. He would have to punish Sans for what he did because he couldn't let others think he had gone soft. After his guards told him Sans was awake he brought him into the lab.

Sans woke up some time later to find himself in a cell but he knew it wasn't the one he had been in since coming to the surface. There were small scratches he made on the inside of all of the cells he had been in so he knew where he was. None of those scratches were in this cell so he was in a new place which likely meant he was in a new lab.

He made a few quick scratches and memorized them then a few minutes later the head researcher stepped into the room. He took him to a new lab room and did more experiments but these ones were even more painful than the ones from before. Sans had no idea how the head researcher came up with even more painful experiments but somehow he did.

After the experiments he went back to his cell to heal himself a bit then it was off to training. Training was normal and Sans got a few wounds because he had to fight so many at once. Once again he was brought back to his cell and he healed himself a little though it was going to take a bit to heal completely.

However today there was something different that they did to try and make Sans a weapon. They dedicated about an hour to trying to break his mind so they could control him easier. He went back to his cell after that but they weren't any closer to breaking him.

*Elsewhere*

The seven skeletons hadn't told the others that Sans was gone and instead went right back home. They went into his room to try and find something that might tell them what happened to Sans. One of them turned on his computer and looked through the files on his desk top.

There wasn't anything on the computer, the phone they had picked up, or in his room. They hoped that Sans had just dropped his phone and would be back soon but they were still worried.

A day passed, then two days and it slowly became a week and by this time they were all in full on work mode. They were looking for Sans again but this time they didn't call the police or their other friends. They knew they probably weren't going to find him so they looked for him on their own.

Eventually Allen showed up because he had somehow found out that Sans was missing and he looked through Sans' room. The others were doubtful that he would find anything seeing as they had checked the room five times for anything they might have missed.

Allen hadn't found anything but he had come up with a theory as to what might have happened to Sans. "Sans was likely taken by the head researcher again seeing as he hadn't killed him. Which means he's either at one of the old labs or at a new one and if he's at a new one it'll be hard to find him."

So they looked at the old labs and when they didn't find anything they looked for a new one. They looked everywhere they could think of and hadn't found anything but they kept looking. Allen had told that that the chances of Sans dying were very low.

Sans was his prized experiment and he couldn't afford to lose him with how much time it had taken to do all of that. So they looked at eventually weeks turned into three months and during that time they had told their friends about Sans' disappearance.

Soon some of them thought that maybe Sans had disappeared on his own and had just been worrying everyone for nothing. Undyne was the one to confront Papayrus about it. "Paps do you think that maybe Sans didn't get taken by someone?"  
"What do you mean Undyne?"

"I mean maybe he was lying about what happened to him."

Allen had been in the room and he was getting angry very quickly and it was getting harder and harder for him not to punch Undyne. He remembered Arvie and what Sans had gone through with the experiments and his training. He knew he wasn't lying because he had seen it with his own eyes.

"Maybe Sans just ran off somewhere and didn't tell you that he was going to."

Now Allen was pissed. He cut her off from speaking anymore by standing and speaking with a voice that filled the whole house. "I've heard enough." She stopped talking and everyone was looking at him including Frisk, Alphys, and Toriel.

"Sans wasn't lying about anything that happened to him. I know you have no idea what happened to him because he doesn't like talking about it. But I saw what happened to him, I was there and I couldn't do a damn thing to help him. He was torn apart and put back together over and over again without sympathy from anyone.

"Then when he had a friend that understood what he was going through he was actually happy. Then they died and he was alone again despite the fact that I was there with him. He spent days locked up in a cold, dark room alone and yet when he wasn't he was with you guys.

"Telling him he never did anything and a lot of other things that weren't even close to true. He never told you anything about what happened because he wanted to protect all of you. He would be gone for several days at a time and he would always tell someone when he was.

"When he came back he always smiled and never complained about the pain he was in. The worst part was that no one noticed that he wasn't okay no matter how obvious it was. He lost everything in that place and none of you noticed until he went missing the first time."

Allen stormed out of the house and went to look in the woods for Sans and to clear his head a little. When what he said finally sunk in he hated himself for telling them all of that. Sans was right, no one cared enough to pay attention to anything he did.

Back in the house everyone watched as Allen stormed out of the house and when he was gone the house fell silent. Undyne felt awful and wanted to know more than ever what happened that no one was willing to talk about.

The ones that knew about what happened to Sans thought about when Allen said that Sans didn't like to talk about what happened. When he had been telling them he had seemed fine but later he had a panic attack. None of them had connected the dots until then and when they did they all scolded themselves for not realizing it sooner.

Eventually Alphys got to curious to stay quiet. "What happened to Sans?"

The skeletons talked to each other about what to say and Swapfell was the one that decided to tell them why they couldn't know. "Sans asked us not to tell anyone so if you want to know then you have to ask him."

Soon after that everyone was trying twice as hard to find him and it was amazing how hard they were working. Some time later Allen joined the group to look for Sans even though he was still mad at Undyne. So they looked everyday and Alphys set up cameras like the ones she had in Snowdin.

Another month passed before Sans saw anything outside the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of them are happy


	10. Who Is This Guy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was late. this chapters also short

Sans had tried for four months to get out and no matter what they did they couldn't break his mind. But his eye lights looked dull unless the head researcher was in the room. When that happened the defiant look came back to his eyes and that's the most that was in his eyes.

Sans had been testing the chains and he figured out what he needed to do to get out of them and at least try for freedom. It took months to be able to gather the strength he needed to break the chains after he figured out how much strength he needed.

He pulled on the chains and they lowly started to break and eventually they broke. He broke all of the chains and got out of the cell and made a break for it while fighting everyone that got in his way. He got to the door and he was free but he needed to keep running because he wasn't going to be able to fight forever.

He was tired from the experiments, the training, and everything else that had happened over these past months. He used most of the power he saved to break the very strong chains so he was basically useless. The lab had been in a large cave that you wouldn't have seen if ou hadn't been paying attention.

He kept running and after what seemed like forever he felt safe enough to take a break for a second. He climbed into a tree just in case and took a minute to think about what to do now. He couldn't go home in the state he was in and even if he did they'd probably be scared of him like before.

He knew not everyone was scared of him but he had doubts about several things now. He decided to stay in the woods and when he was better he would go back to them again. With that he hopped out of the tree and went to the forest that was near the house.

He looked around the forest for a while to find a place to stay when he came across the building he had seen before. He went up to the house and this time he knocked because the door was closed. He heard some noise inside and a few minutes later an old man walked out of the house.

The old man looked at him and when he saw how bad he looked he was very surprised. "Come in please." He brought Sans inside and shut the door with a click and looked back at the skeleton. He brought him to the bathroom to clean himself up and told him to use any medical supplied he needed.

Sans took a shower while making sure to clean off anything that wasn't supposed to be there. He had more scars but he could deal with that and after getting dressed he walked out of the bathroom. The old man gave him food and the whole time Sans didn't say anything.

"By the way what's your name?" The old man asked with one eye grow up. Sans was about to speak but he shut his mouth before he said a word. Not all of the things they had tried to get him to do worked but they had made it so he wouldn't talk. The punishment he got for when he did was painful enough to where it got through even his skull so he no longer spoke.

The man seemed to be even more curious and sat down at the table the skeleton had been sitting at. "Are you not able to talk." Sans didn't do anything and the old man got a note pad and a pen then gave them to the skeleton. He took them and wrote something down and showed the old man.

"'I'm not allowed to talk,' who told you that?" He shook his head and the old man let the question go. "So what's you name then?"

He wrote on the paper and showed it to him. "Sans. That's an interesting name. Nice to meet you Sans." He held out his hand and after a second Sans took his hand and shook it. The old man noticed the manacels but didn't ask because he didn't want to upset the skeleton.

The old man let the skeleton finish eating then showed him around the house and brought him to a spare room last. There had been a library so Sans was happy about that and other then that the house was normal. Except for the old gym in the basement and Sans was sure he was going to be using that.

Sans wasn't sure how to feel about being here but he was glad that he was out of the lab. Sans checked the flower being kept safe within his soul and was glad to see that it was still fine. After that he went to sleep on the bed feeling exhausted but happy now that he was away from the lab.

Sans woke up the next morning and checked around him to make sure he wasn't in the lab. After signing in relief he got up and went to the kitchen to find that the old man from last night wasn't around. He made breakfast and there was more then he could eat and he wondered what to do with it when the old man came in.

He gave him the plate of extra food and the old man smiled before thanking him and they ate at the table. After they were done eating they sat in the living room and the old man decided to ask Sans some questions.

"So where were you before you showed up here?"

Sans grabbed a pad and paper and wrote something down then showed it to the man. 'I don't want to talk about it.' The old man nodded and thought of another question.

"So what do you like to do?"

'I'm not sure what I like to do.' It was true he didn't know what he liked to do anymore. For the past few months he had been chained up and had to do whatever he was told to do. He hadn't even talked for three months and even when he hadn't gone to the lab for nearly a week he had other things he had to worry about.

He and the old man talked for a while longer then they went to the library and the old man sat down to read. Sans saw books scattered everywhere and decided to pick them up and put them somewhere. The library was organized in different sections so it was easy for him to figure out where the books went.

The old man looked up to see what he was doing from time to time and was surprised when the skeleton started cleaning the library. He was surprisingly quick as he did so and was done in about two hours where it would have taken someone a day or two to do it alone.

After Sans was done he took out a book from a section that was science fiction and started reading. He liked the book and didn't notice when the old man got up and left the room for several minutes. He had been getting some water and when he came back Sans was still reading.

Eventually the old man got the skeletons attention and when he did he smiled at him. "Would you like to help me with my garden?" Sans nodded and the old man led him to a garden of flowers. They were the flowers he had seen before but they looked even better then they had before.

Sans got water and plant food for the old man and he watched him take care of the flowers. Sans got the feeling that Asgore would have liked the old man with how well he took care of the flowers. Sans ended up taking care of a few of the flowers and when they were done they went back inside.

Sans went down to the gym in the basement and after cleaning it a little he looked through the things that weren't being used. Sans found a punching bag and was happy when he found it so he set it up. He cleaned more then started using the punching bag and realized that when no one was looking over his shoulder it was kind of fun.

He spent the rest of the day finding other things he liked to do and was happy the whole time. He liked reading science fiction, playing video games, helping the old man with his garden, and using the gym in the basement. He never knew he liked doing those things until that day and was glad he liked them so much

He asked the old man his name at one point and he said his name was Ben which seemed to fit him. Ben had checked on him several times throughout the day and was glad to see that the skeleton was doing better than the night before. Sans had a panic attack that night but it wasn't as bad as the last one and it wasn't as loud.

*Meanwhile*

Allen had been leading the searches after he had yelled at Undyne and come back. Everyone did what he said and they had eliminated several places a lab could have been. Some of them were starting to get discouraged but Allen knew it was only a matter of time before they found Sans.

They checked the cameras everyday but they hadn't seen anything on them yet. Several of the cameras had been broken at one point and had to be replaced. They had been broken by someone and Allen thought it might have been because they were out there doing something.

Undyne had been working harder then she had before to make up for being such a jerk before. Allen decided to look around the forest himself and checked the trees for anything odd. He looked in a tree and found something red in one of them and upon further inspection saw that it was determination.

If he was right Sans had either gotten out of the lab or been ordered to do something. Either way he got hurt and it was the first clue they had found in some time. He told the others the news and they didn't like the fact that he was likely hurt but they were glad he might be out there.

So they searched for Sans with new hope in their souls.


	11. Happiness Can Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans deserves to be happy once in a while

Everyone had been searching for Sans everyday for a week when red, blueberry, and Swapfell Sans came across a building in the woods. They told the other skeletons as well as Allen and they decided to check out the building during the night.

When the time came they left the house and went to the building the group of Sans had found. They thought it best to knock seeing as the place didn't look like somewhere the head researcher would make. They knocked three times and after a minute an elderly man came to the door and smiled upon seeing who was at the door.

"Are you all lost?" The man asked with a kind look.

"No sir we're looking for someone, he's a skeleton named Sans." Allen said looking hopeful and patient.

"Come in please." He gestured for them to come in and they did after a second of thinking. They looked around the house and saw that it was very clean considering the old man seemed like he wouldn't be able to do much himself. The old man had them follow him down a hallway and they followed at the same slow pace as the man.

"I'm surprised you found this place, it's very out of the way so most people pass right by it." He kept walking and he sat down in the living room and the others sat down either on a chair or on the floor.

"So let me ask you something, what does the skeleton your trying to find look like?"

"Well he has a blue jacket." Said Swapfell Papyrus not wanting to describe what the skeleton would likely look like at the current time.

"Does he have a tail?" They were all stunned and couldn't say anything for a moment and the old man just smiled.

"He's in the library right now if you want to see him." They all nodded and the old man got up and lead them to the library and opened the doors to let them through.

"Sans." The old man said and there were two knocks in response and the old man turned to them. "He'll be here in a moment." As if to prove him right there was a blur of blue and Sans stopped by his side and looked directly at him.

"These people say they've been looking for you, do you know them?" Sans turned to the others with the same blank stare he had when he first broke out of the lab. It had been a week since then but the glazed over look hadn't changed at all. There was a flash of recognition in his eyes and Sans wrote something down on a pad of paper and showed it to the old man.

"Well it's good to see that your friends have come to visit you." Sans turned back to the others and he didn't say anything while he did so. Everyone but the old man wondered why he wasn't talking. Sans wrote on the paper again and showed it to the others.  
'I didn't think you'd find me.'

"We've been looking everywhere for you Sans. What happened?" Papyrus asked and Sans didn't react to the question at all. Then he lifted his right arm and pointed to the manacle on his wrist. The others understood immediately and they were about to say something when there was a noise from somewhere in the library.

Sans wrote on the paper and showed it to the man then went off to see what caused the noise. The old man lead them to the living room again and they all waited for Sans to come into the room before they sat down. Sans came into the room a minute or two later and he sat on one of the chairs.

The others sat down and the old man said he was going to go to bed and he left the room. Swapfell Sans was the one to start asking the questions that they all wanted answers to. "What the hell happened after you left us at the park?"

Sans was about to talk but stopped himself and stayed quiet then looked at the manacles on his wrists. The others wondered why he stopped himself from talking and waited for someone to do something.

"Why won't you talk?" Asked blueberry looking worried. Allen suddenly remembered something the head researcher had tried to do the last time they kidnapped him.

"Oh god they didn't." Sans didn't say anything and Allen knew that he was right about what had happened. The others were confused and wanted to know what Allen was talking about but the look on Sans' face said he didn't want to talk about it.

Sans wrote on the paper and tore it off and handed it to the nearest person which was Swapfell Sans and he left the room. He looked at the paper and all it said was 'I'm going to bed.' Sans had walked to his room and went to sleep while trying not to think about what had happened.

The other skeletons stayed in the living room and they all turned to Allen to see that he looked angry and sad at the same time. "Allen what happened to Sans?" Asked Swapfell Papyrus unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer or not.

It took Allen a minute to answer, "The head researcher wanted to control Sans completely. He threatened to kill everyone he cared about and used everything he had to hurt him as much as possible. But somehow it didn't work so the head researcher kept thinking of ways to break him.

"The head researcher decided to torture him until he broke Sans and made it so he was like a puppet. He kidnapped him last time so he could do just that but he was more resilient than he thought. He was gone for four months and in that time he likely tried it again and this time it worked. Not completely but enough to make it so Sans no longer talks for fear of having to go through that again."

Everyone felt bad for Sans because of what he must have endured the last four months. They felt like Allen did, they wanted to kick some ass but they were sad as well. Eventually they all went to sleep after some time but they all thought about what Allen had told them until they fell asleep.

The next morning Sans was the first one up and h made breakfast like he had since his first morning here. Ben was up next and Sans gave him his food before going to the library like he often did. The others woke up some time after Sans went to the library and Ben gave them the food Sans had cooked.

Ben hadn't told them that Sans was the one that made it because he had simply forgot. Since Sans came here he had been helping him remember to do certain things he forgot to do. He was glad the skeleton had showed up at his door step but was sad that he seemed to be in a bad place in his mind.

Sans was in the library reading the ninth book he had picked up since he came here and was immersed in his book. His eyes might look blank and he might not talk but he was far from mindless. The only reason he hadn't done more damage to the new lab was because he didn't have the energy.

After finishing his book he went to help Ben with his garden and after that he went to the gym. He was content with what was happening in his life right now because it seemed normal. It was as if the lab was only a nightmare that had ended and he was now awake and happy.

Th flower garden was looking better than ever in Ben's opinion and Sans seemed happier then the first few days he was there. Everyone noticed that Sans seemed happy here and Sans knew that it wasn't going to last for long. That was why he was enjoying every minute of being here and he was happy the others were here.

He might not be able to show it or tell them that but he was happy none the less and Ben noticed that. Sans was taking care of a lot of things Ben hadn't been able to do in his old age and he still was. Neither the other skeletons nor Allen knew what they could do with Sans taking care of everything.

However Sans was still on edge and no one saw that which Sans was glad for. Whenever he was helping take care of the garden with Ben he looked around to make sure no one was lurking around. He also checked outside ever window he passed just to make sure everything was okay.

Eventually Allen and the others left so Undyne wouldn't do anything crazy because they were gone. They told them that they had found Sans and they were all happy and asked where he was. However because of what could happen if they went back now they waited until night to go back.

They went back at night and when Ben opened the door he said Sans was in the basement. They didn't know what was in the basement but they didn't ask and they just waited for Sans to come back upstairs. While they waited Sans was getting something out of a box with a look of aggravation on his face.

He got some chains out of the box and he hung the punching bag back up . His own chains clinked on the chains he used to put the punching bag back up. After he was done he went back upstairs to find everyone including Undyne, Alphys, Toriel and the kid sitting in the living room.

He looked to the side and Frisk walked up to Sans and signed 'Hi Sans' and he didn't look at them. Frisk turned to the others and gave them a questioning look and no one said anything. Ben walked into the room and looked from Sans to the others but didn't say anything.

Sans shifted slightly as Ben sat down and Sans followed his lead and grabbed the pad of paper on the table next to the chair. He showed it to the others and it simply said 'Hey' and the few that didn't know why he wasn't speaking looked confused.

Alphys was the type of person that got worried about people easily and because Sans wasn't talking she started worrying. "W- why isn't Sans t- talking?"

Sans wrote on his paper and showed it to her. 'I can't' was all it said and Undyne raised an eyebrow.

"Why can't you talk?"

"That's none of your business." Said Allen with a hint of irritation in his voice. Allen got protective of Sans a lot because of what he had seen happen to him. Allen was Sans' first and only friend in the lab besides Arvie but after he died Allen was the only one he had as a friend in the lab.

He was still mad at Undyne for she had said before and knowing that Sans didn't like talking about things like this made him super protective. Soon enough Undyne and Allen were yelling at each other and everyone was trying to get them to stop but either were paying attention.

Sans was quickly getting angry that they were fighting and when nothing else worked he acted without thinking. "Enough!" He yelled and everyone looked at him when he did and he realized what he did. He was standing when he had yelled and he stepped to the side so he was closer to the door.

His soul beat quicker and fear took him over because he was waiting for what usually happened if he talked. He ran out of the room in a blur and Ben simply got up and walked out of the room to see if the skeleton was alright. Sans ran to his room and closed the door then locked it and shakily walked toward the bed in the room.

His legs gave out and he started to fall and he tried to grab a table in the room but all it did was make several things clatter to the floor. He got back up and walked to the bed and crawled onto it and thought about what had happened last time he talked.

The pain from that time was horrible and just remembering it hurt and he lay down on his side while curling in on himself. He was having another panic attack but this time no one could get into the room. The noises that ensued however could be heard throughout the whole house and everyone heard it.

Some of them started crying while the others tried to block out the noises. After they stopped no one said anything and they all went to sleep with the noises echoing in their heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I said once in a while


	12. Sharing Is Not Caring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans doesn't like talking

Sans woke up earlier then all of them and made breakfast like he always did but he didn't stick around for anyone to wake up after him. He went into the bathroom after he was done making breakfast and looked at his wounds. During his little episode last night he had hurt himself on accident and it hurt.

He cleaned the wounds and looked at his soul to see if the flower was okay. When he saw that it was he opened the bathroom door and teleported to the library. He sat on his chair and read a new book then took care of the flowers on his own and went to the basement.

He stayed down there until it was time for lunch and he made everyone some food and left once again. He didn't play any video games like he usually would around this time and he wondered what he should do. He ended up teleporting to the house he lived in before and got the things from his hiding place.

He brought them back to his room at Ben's house and went back to grab whatever else he cared about enough to bring. He worked on the machine in the basement of the house and after several hours actually got it to work of a few seconds. He would have to wait to get it to work long enough to get the skeletons back home but he would do that soon enough.

He teleported back to the house and mad dinner then went back to the library and read some more. After he was done reading he went back to his room and looked at the flower that he kept safe in his soul. He decided to teleport to the tree and he climbed up the tree and sat on the branches.

Instead of smiling to himself he used the time he had with the tree to cry because no one could hear him. The flower in his soul glowed brighter and he saw it but he didn't do anything about it. He felt a hand on his shoulder but he didn't look up to see who it was because he already knew.

He cried for hours but it felt a lot longer to Sans and when he was done he went home. He crawled into bed and thought about his friend Arvie until he fell asleep. This time he didn't have any nightmares and he was happy for that and so was the pat of Arvie that was in his soul.

Throughout the whole day everyone in the house had been sad and sluggish because they were tired. They didn't see Sans the entire time and they didn't know where he was all day either. There was food when it was time to eat and they ate the food but none of them saw Ben either.

They figured it must have been Ben who made the food but they didn't ask to make sure. Allen had been hit the hardest when Sans had been having a panic attack because it reminded him of the others he had seen. Sans often hurt himself when that happened but no one noticed like they didn't notice anything else.

The only person that was ever able to help him had been Arvie but now there wasn't anything left of him but his and Sans' memory. There was nothing anyone could do to help him and soon or later Sans might go through with ending it. He didn't want to think about that but it was a possibility.

Ben meanwhile knew that Sans must have been through a lot to make him do something like that. He couldn't even say one word without having a panic attack worse than any he had ever seen. Even with all of his experience Ben didn't know how to help him and it broke his heart.

Everyone in the house but Sans went to sleep that night feeling like tomorrow would only bring more pain. For once Sans didn't think about what tomorrow would bring because he didn't care.

Sans woke up before anyone else like yesterday and made breakfast then went to the house and worked on the machine. After an hour then went to take care of the flowers and take a little break. He went back to the house and worked on the machine until it was time to make lunch.

He made lunch and went to the library to read for a few hours and he finished another book. He went back to the house after making dinner and got the machine to work for more than a few second and he was glad. He worked until it was late then he went to visit the tree again and this time he didn't cry.

He worked on the machine for several more days and eventually he got it to work long enough for the others to go back to their universes. Just when he was about to go and get the others there was a sharp pain in his chest and he fell to his knees.

He looked at his soul and it seemed to be fine for now and eventually the pain went away. He sighed and got up then teleported to his room at Ben's and he collapsed on the bed. He knew what was going to happen, he just didn't think I'd happen so soon.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep telling himself that he would tell the other about the machine tomorrow. While Sans went to sleep Ben thought about what would happen to his skeleton friend. He decided that he would talk to Sans tomorrow and see what was wrong.

Everyone else in the house were worried for both Sans and Ben because they hadn't seen either of them in a few days. They had both been avoiding the others during that time and they were all starting to get worried. But they couldn't do anything for either of them, it was to late for anyone to help them.

Sans woke up at the same time he always did and Ben was up at that time as well so he could talk to Sans. Sans left a note in the living room where he knew the others would see it and he made breakfast. Ben walked in while he was making it and Ben smiled at him when Sans looked at him. Sans smiled at him and that was the first smile Ben had ever seen Sans give him.

Ben thought that a smile suited him better than the blank look he often wore on his face. Sans was glad to see that Ben was acting the same around him and when he finished the food he gave Ben his plate. They both ate in silence and when they were finished Sans put their plates in the sink.

"Would you like to spend the day together?" Asked Ben hoping Sans would say yes so he could tell him what he wanted to say. Sans turned to him and wrote on his paper and showed it to Ben. It was a simple yes but Sans smiled a little and Ben gave him a big smile.

So that day they took a walk in the forest and found that for an old man Ben had a lot of energy. Ben talked about a lot of things and Sans wrote about things to but he tried to make it so they weren't entire paragraphs.

Eventually the sun started to set and Sans decided that he wanted to show Ben the tree. He wrote that he wanted to show him something and Ben nodded so Sans grabbed onto his sleeve and teleported. They were in Snowdin forest and it was a good thing Ben had gotten a jacket before they left.

Sans smiled when he saw the tree and his soul glowed blue and purple, but Ben didn't notice. Instead Ben looked at the tree then turned to Sans and decided that now was as good a time as any. "Sans I have something to ask you." Sans looked at him and Ben felt sad. 

"Sans I know you probably don't want to tell anyone about what happened to you but I must ask, what scares you so much that you can't even talk?" Sans took a moment to answer and he wrote slowly while he thought about why this had to be his answer.  
'I can't tell you, you'll get hurt if I do.' Ben looked sad and he looked directly at Sans.

"You do not have to tell me if you don't want to but you should try to talk to your friends so they don't worry about you." Sans nodded and Ben smiled then Sans teleported them back home and they both went to sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben is so nice


	13. Flowers and Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter had good and bad moments

Sans woke up that morning and made breakfast and unlike the past several days he stayed in the living room and read the book he got from the library. The others got their breakfast before going to the living room and were surprised to find Sans sitting in his chair reading.

Everyone eventually sat down and ate while waiting to see what Sans would do, that is, if he put his book down. Everyone finished eating and Sans used his magic to take their plates and he brought them into the kitchen. Then he went to take care of the flowers and the others watched from the window as he did so.

They were surprised to see that he looked like he knew what he was doing as he took care of them. When he was done he came back inside and sat back on his chair in the living room. The others had moved away from the window by then and Sans didn't mention the fact that they had watched him.

Everyone noticed that his eyes seemed to be more glazed over than normal but they thought it was because of the episode he had before. In truth it wasn't but that might have contributed to it a little. Ben hadn't come into the living room and Sans knew that he was outside sitting on a wooden bench in the back yard.

No one knew what to say but blueberry was the kind of person that said something when no one else did. "So how do you feel?" At least he hadn't asked if he was okay which he obviously was not.

Sans shrugged and wrote on his paper, 'not good but not bad.' He didn't feel a lot anymore because of what happened to him during those four months in the lab. He felt a few things but half the time it was when the part of Arvie in his soul helped push him in the right direction.

He probably wouldn't even be here if Ben hadn't told him to and Arvie pushed him to do it. He was never good at talking to people after something bad happened and that wasn't going to change in the near future. Eventually Undyne broke the silence that once again fell upon the group.

"So, uh... sorry if I asked something I shouldn't have." Sans looked at her and he was simply confused as to why she was apologizing. He wasn't used to people apologizing to him partly because at the lab everyone hated him, and partly because Ben never had anything to apologize for. It had been a long time since he's heard the word 'sorry.'

Sans wrote on his paper, 'Why are you apologizing?' Undyne seemed taken aback by the fact that Sans didn't see why she was apologizing. She had been insensitive and her question lead to Sans having a complete melt down. It took hours for the noises to stop and based on the noises what he had been freaking out about wasn't good.

"Why wouldn't I apologize?"

'I'm not used to people actually caring about me and my feeling after the past four months.' The room was dead silent for a minute then Frisk got everyones attention and they seemed upset.

'Can you tell us what happened?'

Sans thought about it for a moment then wrote his answer, 'It's hard to explain.' He looked out the window for a minute then he shook his head slightly to get his head back in order. His gazed flicked to the manacles on his wrists but he forced his gaze to look at the others.

He wrote that he was going to the library and he left with the others following him. They hadn't been to the library yet and they wanted to see it for themselves so now was as good a time as any. Sans opened the door to the library and looked around to see that Ben had paid a visit to the library that morning.

Sans used his magic to bring the books to him and he went about finding which shelves they were supposed to be in. He had to climb several book cases because they were just that high but he didn't mind. He could have used the ladder that was in the library but it would be annoying to have to bring it everywhere.

The few people that hadn't seen how athletic Sans really were seemed both shocked and impressed that Sans was able to climb them that easily. After Sans was done putting the books away he found himself on top of one of the book shelves. He just jumped from bookshelf to bookshelf until he got to the science fiction books and he climbed down.

He looked at several books and eventually found one he was interested in and he walked over to his chair and started reading. When the others seemed to not know what to do Sans closed the book and grabbed several books off of random shelves. He knew his way around pretty well so he knew where to find what he was looking for.

He gave a book to everyone and he sat back down and started reading his book again. Everyone eventually sat down and began reading the books Sans had given them and they found that they liked them. Some time later it was time for Sans to make lunch and he silently got up to do so.

He was in the middle of making lunch when red, blueberry, and Swapfell Sans walked in. Their eyes widened when they saw that he was cooking and the thought occurred to them that Sans had been the one cooking for them all of this time. Sans noticed them staring at him from the doorway but he didn't care enough to do anything.

After he was done he wrote on his paper asking for one of them to get the others. Red was the one that ended up going to get them and Sans cleaned up the kitchen quickly. By the time the others had gone into the kitchen it was like there hadn't been several items crowding the counter.

When everyone had their food and were eating Sans went into the living room to play a video game for a little bit. He was actually pretty skilled when it came to video games because he had good hand eye coordination. He was done playing the video game when they others had finished eating so Sans went to the backyard.

The backyard looked like something taken out of a fairy tale with the way it looked. There were even more flowers back here and a small path that lead to a wooden bench. Above the wooden bench there was a stone arch that had vines and flowers all over it.

There were bushes that lead to the bench as well as beyond it and at this time of day the light filtered through the area beyond the bench. Sans walked on the path leading toward the bench and walked right past it. On the other side was an open area with flowers crawling up the sides of the bushes that bordered the area.

There was also a ceiling of veins that went over his head and hung down a bit but it still let light through. Birds often came into the garden so you could often see or hear birds in the flowers. Sans just stood there admiring the garden when a bird landed on his shoulder.

After that four birds landed by his feet and started pecking the ground near him. Soon after a Alpine Black Swallowtail butterfly flew toward Sans and he put out his left hand and it landed on his finger. Sans really did love this garden and he would never get tired of it no matter how much time he spent in it.

Soon after that the others had come into the back yard to find Sans and found a real life fairy tale. They walked down the path and looked at everything with a careful eye as they did so. Eventually they got to the archway and from there they could see Sans standing in the clearing.

He was just standing there with a butterfly on his hand and birds around him on the ground with one on his shoulder. The light hit the area at an angle that seemed to make everything in it look delicate. All together the scene looked absolutely stunning and several of them took out their phones to take pictures.

After several minutes of silently taking pictures at different angles they put their phones away. Then Sans' brother called out to Sans quietly so he wouldn't startle him to much. "Sans?"

Sans turned to see them and surprisingly enough neither the birds nor the butterfly flew away because of the movement. The bird on Sans' shoulder actually used it's feet to hold onto the fabric of his jacket. The butterfly simply moved it's wings slightly but it stayed where it was.

When Sans turned around the others could see that his eyes seemed to sparkle instead of looking blank. In that one moment he seemed more alive than any of them could remember him looking. Everyone that had been taking pictures before took out their phones again and took photo's as fast as they could.

Sans would have asked why they were doing that but he kept his mouth shut and just stared at them. After a minute Sans saw the butterfly leave and the birds weren't far behind. Several minutes passed with the others taking more pictures then Sans decided to go inside.

When they were back inside Sans went to the living room and noticed that the note he had left for the others about the machine was still just sitting there. He grabbed it and crumpled it into a ball and put it into his pocket. Then the others came into the room and he grabbed some paper and started writing.

His eyes were slowly glazing over again but Sans didn't notice unlike the other people in the room. When he was done writing he gave the paper to Red and he read it. 'I fixed the machine yesterday so you can all go home whenever you want to. I left you a note telling you about it yesterday but it doesn't look like anyone saw it.'

The other skeletons read the note over Red's shoulder and were surprised to see what it said. They could go home but they didn't want to leave this world after finding out what's been going on. All of them were fighting with their own minds on the matter.

In the end they decided that they didn't want to leave quite yet and they told Sans just that. Sans was surprised but he just shrugged and wrote, 'It's your choice' and he went to the basement. After a few hours he made dinner and he gave them all their dinners then went outside for a walk.

Meanwhile everyone ate their dinners and the only ones that knew who made it were Red, Blueberry, and Swapfell Sans. They didn't think the others really needed to know that Sans was the one that made the food. They just paid attention to how delicious the food was even though they didn't think Sans could cook.

Sans was taking a walk in the forest but for the first five minutes he was zipping around so he was away from the house. If he was found he didn't want to be found near the house so they could take the others to. He got lost in his own thoughts and hadn't been paying attention to the things around him.

Eventually Sans was surrounded by seven guards from the lab but thankfully the head researcher wasn't there. Two came at Sans and he easily knocked them out then three more came at him. While he was focusing on the three that had come at him one of the remaining two snuck up behind him.

They caught him by surprise and they hurt his left arm but he quickly drop kicked the asshole that did it. One of them slammed him into a tree like he had been some time before this. His back was hurt even more than before but he kept fighting and eventually he beat them.

He made sure to leave a false trail just in case they tried to track him. Then he back tracked then he covered the trail that would have lead them in the right direction. He was tired by the end of it so he slowly made his way back because he didn't have enough energy to teleport.

When he got back it was late so everyone was asleep which was good because he didn't want then to see him like this. He went to the bathroom and cleaned the wounds while making sure not to leave a mess. After he was done he went to his room and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans likes sleeping. If anyone has any ideas for the story feel free to put them in the comments.


	14. Dark and Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this was late

Sans woke up earlier than he normally did so he just went to the back yard and sat on the bench for a while. When it was time to make breakfast he left the backyard after stumbling for a second. He was still hurt and he didn't have much strength at the moment so he was going to have to be careful.

He made breakfast and when everyone walked in he gave them their breakfast and left having already eaten his. He read in the library and when the others came in to join him he didn't notice. He took care of the flowers and when he was done with that he made lunch and went to talk to Ben a bit.

Sans found Ben in the front yard looking at the small flower garden there. When he noticed Sans he looked at him and smiled then Sans walked over and stood at his side. "The flowers look better than I've ever seen them In ever would have gotten them to look like this on my own."

Sans had a note pad in his hand along with a pen but he didn't know what he would say. He still didn't know how to respond to kindness and Ben was the nicest person he had ever met. He even rivaled Papyrus's kindness which he never thought would happen.

Ben put his hand on Sans' shoulder and looked him in the eye which made Sans smile just a little. They looked at the flowers for a bit longer then they went back into the house to sit in the library and read like they often did. Both Ben and Sans were glad that the other was there and Sans' soul glowed blue and purple.

This time Ben noticed the blue and purple glow but he didn't ask what it was not wanting to upset the skeleton. The other skeletons came into the library once more and noticed the two but their eyes were immediately drawn to the blue and purple glow. Their eyes widened and they wanted to ask what it was but thought that now wouldn't be the best time.

Sans had finished the book he was reading and went to get a new one and when he came back Ben told Sans he was going to the garden. Sans nodded and sat down to read his book while Ben walked out to the garden and sat on the bench. Sans had read a few pages of his book when everyone decided to talk to Sans and get around to asking what that glow was.

They had gotten Sans attention and he put his book down so he could look at all of them without any distractions. The others waited patiently for Sans to put his book down and when his eyes were on all of them they started asking questions.

"So Sans how are you feeling?" Asked Underswap Papyrus and he immediately knew they were up to something. He wasn't up for games so he grabbed his note pad and wrote, 'okay what do you want' then showed it to them. They were all shocked that he had figured it out so quickly and that he had been so blunt.

"Okay fine, why is there a blue and purple glow in your chest?" Asked Underfell Papyrus and Sans immediately knew what he was talking about. He didn't even have to look down to know what was going on and he face palmed wondering why this had to happen now.

He wrote on his paper and showed them the paper that said, 'it's hard to explain.' They all waited for him to explain and he decided to just show them. He summoned his soul into his hand and looked at it for a second then showed them. They all looked at the flower surrounded by the blue heart and they all thought it was like the heart was protecting the flower.

Sans kept his gaze on the flower the whole time to see if it reacted at all but the only thing that happened was that it glowed a little brighter. Sans had never shown the flower to someone else before and he was a little unsettled because of it. Just the thought that something could happen to the only thing he had left of Arvie was to much for him.

When the others moved back he closed his hand around the soul and it moved to the inside of his rib cage. It was still glowing but the glow was getting a little dimmer as time went on. He grabbed the note pad and simply wrote, 'that was my soul.' They all looked at the note and they seemed to not get exactly what he was talking about.

'My soul was different from other monsters, that's part of the reason they experimented on me. My souls blue and the flower you saw is part of another soul that I'm currently protecting.'

They all read the message when Sans showed it to them and they all had questions. "Wait so your soul was different from other monsters?" Asked Sans' brother and Sans thought about how to explain it so it wasn't confusing.

'My souls was like that before the experiments but the flower showed up later.'

They all thought about it for a minute and it did answer some questions they didn't even know they had. However they still had a lot of questions they wanted to ask but they thought that was enough questions about his soul for now. "Seriously though haw are you feeling?" Asked Underswap Papyrus with a serious face and Sans quickly wrote a response.

'I'm really, really tired.' Normally they would think he was tired because he was lazy but their way of thinking had changed recently. If Sans was turned that meant that something was wrong in one was or another. "What happened?" Swapfell asked looking and sounding more serious than anyone could remember him being.

Everyone, not just the skeletons, had become extremely protective of Sans since they found him after four months. You could tell he was broken just from looking into his eyes and they didn't even know the half of it. Well as Sans would never admit that he was that broken it didn't mean it wasn't true.

At the seriousness in Swapfell Sans' voice he became very confused as to why he cared so much. Sans wrote his response, 'I'm just tired, I didn't sleep well.' It was true that he hadn't slept well and that was because of the nightmares he'd been having.

They all seemed sad but Sans just jumped out of his chair and went to go do something with his time. He ended up checking on all of the flowers three times than he went to the basement. After that he made dinner and went on another walk which didn't result in a fight.

He went to his room that night with a lot of things on his mind and he ended up having a panic attack. Ben had heard the noises as well as the other skeletons and Allen who came running as soon as they heard the noises. When Allen opened the door he saw what was going on and closed it again looking worried.

"What's happening?" Asked Red both worried and angry that Allen had just closed the door after seeing what was going on.

"He's having an 'episode' and it's bad. When this happens he often attacks things out of no where and because he doesn't know what's going on he'll hurt others if they get to close. The worst part is he'll probably hurt himself in the process which also happens a lot."

Most of them had seen Sans in this state but they didn't know he would hurt himself as well. They wanted to charge in that room but they knew the couldn't to much. They didn't know how to help him and being near him might only make things worse. The best they could do is make sure he slept well and healed properly when he came back to his senses.

Ben however went into the room after everyone else had left to go to the living room. He closed the door then walked over to the bed and calmly sat in a chair and looked at Sans. He was sad that this kind skeleton had gone through something that caused him to be like this. However he was confident that he could help Sans with his skills in dealing with this sort of thing.

"Sans I need you to listen to me, I know that whatever your seeing right now is terrifying. I know that you might not be able to hear me but if you can I need you to listen to me. I know your scared of talking so I'll ask you yes or no questions, tell me are you scared?"

Sans wasn't able to see Ben but he could here him and it made him feel better. He nodded when he asked if he was scared. "Are you in a dark place?" He nodded again, he was in his cell after being experimented on. "Is it cold there?" Another nod and Ben thought for a moment. "Are you being kept there against your will?"

Sans didn't know how to answer that question, he didn't know anything anymore. He didn't know if he because he was being forced to or if he just didn't care where he was anymore. He didn't really care about anything and even if he did would it matter?

Ben didn't know if Sans hadn't heard him or if it was something else but he continued to talk to him. "Sans I don't know what your seeing but I promise I won't leave you." Ben continued to talk and after several minutes the images Sans was seeing started to disappear.

Sans fell to the side on the bed and he slowly closed his eyes to sleep in what felt like forever. After he did Ben covered him with a blanket and left him to sleep in peace. He went to his room and thought about what might have scared the skeleton so much.

Eventually everyone in the house was asleep, those that didn't know what happened to Sans had good dreams, the ones that knew however felt sad and helpless as they fell asleep. No one knew that Sans had woken up merely hours later smiling just a little, because even though he might not have been there, Ben had helped him once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben has a few secrets of his own


	15. Blue and Purple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry the recent chapters have been late, I've had a few emergencies that have gotten in the way of writing them

Sans had been in his room for about an hour after he woke up and he decided to go to the garden. He turned on the lights that were carefully strung around the bushes and wound through the flowers. The garden was just as beautiful during the day as it was during the night with the lights on.

Sans sat for a while just looking at the flowers when he realized that he hurt the back of his leg. He went back inside and cleaned the injury then wrapped it up to help stop the bleeding. When he was done there was still about two hours till the sun rose so he went to see the tree.

After a few hours the sun had risen and he went back to the house and started doing random things. He would pick up items that weren't where they were supposed to be, he cleaned the dishes, and picked up in the library. He made breakfast when it was time and left the food out for the others.

Sans went to the basement and no one saw him all day because he was down there. He mad all of their meals well as most of them didn't know that but those were the only times when he wasn't down there. When it was getting late he went outside to take a walk.

Sans knew that he was probably going to be attacked because those bastards were persistent. He didn't really care about the fact that he was going to be attacked he just wanted to make sure the others didn't get involved. They were already involved but if they were there when he was attacked it odds that they would get hurt were very high.

Sans knew that the head researcher would probably either kill them or lock them up. He would probably try to lock them up because if he killed them he would have an angry Sans to deal with. Sans was dangerous when he got angry or panicked and the proof was the form he was currently in.

The only reason Sans hadn't killed any of them yet was because he didn't want to kill them. But if they killed everyone he would tear them apart without mercy. He would be extremely pissed and sad which wasn't a good combination no matter where he was.

Sans was about three of four miles away from the house at this point because he had run for the first half of his walk. If he was far away from the house when he was attacked it would be harder for them to find him. He was glad that he knew their tricks so he could avoid then effectively.

Sure enough about fifteen minutes later he was attacked by three guards and he beat them all but his leg got hurt even more. He brushed it aside thinking 'what's a few more scars and cracks?' He ended up walked for a while longer and got back to the house early in the morning.

What he didn't count on was that everyone was awake and when they saw his leg they freaked out. They tried to get him to sit down so they could help but he just walked past them. If the injury wasn't showing they wouldn't have thought that he was hurt at all because he was walking normally.

He took care of his hurt leg in the bathroom and when he was done he walked out like it never happened. He hadn't planned on them finding out about the attacks so he just said that he got hurt while going on a walk. When asked how he got hurt he said he fell from somewhere high up and hit his leg on something when he hit the ground.

The only one that knew it wasn't true was Allen and that was because he knew what the head researcher was like. He wouldn't leave Sans alone, especially after he had trained him to not speak and he likely trained him to do other things to. Allen and Sans both knew the head researcher wouldn't give up after accomplishing one of his long term goals.

However Sans was the only one that knew what had happened during the four months he was gone. He hated thinking about what happened but his mind often wondered back to his time at the lab. Those four months were easily the worse days of his life though he didn't like admitting it.

As the day went on Sans acted completely normal and so did Ben as well as Allen but everyone else was worried about Sans. Undyne, Alphys, Toriel, and Frisk were worried about him, he had always been weaker than most monsters. The others weren't worried because they had seen him beat over two dozen people and live, even if he did get hurt.

Sans still went out for a 'walk' every night but he was slightly more careful when he was out. His leg healed after a few days and it did leave a few permanent scars but he didn't care. They were just a few more to deal with but he was used to it after living with them for so long.

As the days passed and Sans continued to not speak everyone got more curious about what had happened to him. Ben was curious but if he was that scared of what had happened then he wouldn't ask. But the ones that didn't know anything about what had happened decided to ask one day while they were in the library.

Sans hadn't remembered where the conversation started but once it did there were two sides to the conversation. Ben and Sans hadn't gotten involved in the conversation because it might have made it worse. The two sides consisted of the other skeletons and Allen in one corner and everyone else in the other.

Undyne and her little entourage were greatly outnumbered but they didn't back down. The side that had more people was arguing that the other shouldn't have asked that question. The other side argued that they had a right to know what had happened and so did they.

Sans was getting angry that they were arguing again and after several more minutes Sans finally lost it. He hadn't just gone over the edge he jumped and once he did there was little he could do about it. He used his magic to make several things in the room move and he created a wall of bones between the two groups.

Sans' mind had gone blank because he had been trained to be emotionless when he was using magic. It was one of the things that he had been trained to do by the head researcher. His eye lights went out and he just stood there as things in the room moved and his magic started going crazy.

None of them had seen Sans like this before but that didn't mean they were going to stop and question it. Sans' magic seemed to cause the air to stir because a wind was forming in the room. After a minute or so a purple light came from Sans' rib cage and everything stopped moving immediately.

Everything went back to where it was supposed to but no one could get close to Sans. The purple light enveloped Sans and none of them knew what was going on but it was odd. Somewhere in Sans' mind he was in a place that was completely white and he looked around.

Then he spotted something that was outlined in purple and Sans turned toward it. When he did he saw Arvie standing there looking as care free as ever and his trademark smile on his face. "Hey Sans, how's it going?"

Sans stared wide eyed for a minute then he laughed and he started crying. "I've been better." Sans was never scared to talk when Arvie was around even if he had been trained to never talk again. Arvie walked up to him and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry I can't help you all that much but at least I got you to calm down." Sans smiled and Arvie was glad that Sans could still smile despite everything that he'd been through. They hugged for a brief moment then looked at each other and Arvie gave him a sad smile.

"I have to go but I'll make sure to help you out when I can." Sans was a little sad that he would have to leave but at least he had seen his best friend again. Just like that Arvie was gone and Sans fell to his knees and he came back to reality. Sans found that he had fallen to his knees in real life as well and his vision was blurry. Sans fell to the side and he saw people running toward him before he blacked out.

Sans woke up in his bed and he sat up while wondering what had happened when it hit him all at once. He hadn't had a meltdown like that since he was in the lab with Arvie. He was supposed to fight Arvie for training but that idea had taken a wrong turn when he destroyed the room.

Then he remembered seeing Arvie and he felt tears fall onto his hands and he silently cried for a few minutes. Sans looked at the clock next to him and saw that the others wouldn't be up yet so he made breakfast. He spent most of his day in the basement or in the library but he didn't see anyone the whole time.

*****

The head researcher had been thinking of a way to get Sans back when he suddenly remembered something. He dug through his files and found something that was quite interesting. He got several teams together and they began searching for the thing that would ensure that Sans never tried to get out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someones in trouble


	16. The Means To An End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter I've made

Sans had spent the next week being even more reclusive than before and no one could help him. He would spend time with Ben but he was just about the only person he spent time with anymore. Sans continued going for walks and well as it appeared that he was okay he would get hurt more often than not.

His legs showed more signs of previous injuries than they did before this but no one mentioned it. None of them wanted to set Sans off again because the experience had scared all of them. Most of them hadn't thought that Sans could do that and the ones that did were still scared.

Sans was aware that they were scared so he stayed away from them and kept doing what he usually did. He hadn't know what he was supposed to do and not feeling a lot wasn't helping. If the head researcher were there he would have punched him in the face with everything he had.

Even if the others were in the same room Sans would have the same blank look and not do anything. He looked defeated and broken much like when Sans first got out of the lab after four months. They had thought he was getting better but after his break down he wouldn't even write notes anymore.

The fact that he wouldn't even try to communicate anymore was the part that hurt them the most. Sans didn't blame anyone but himself for the fight and he kept thinking about Arvie. If only he had done something to save him, maybe he'd still be here instead of him. Sans didn't think he deserved to be alive let alone to have people that cared about him so much.

Ben knew that Sans was going through a lot and he decided to talk to the others about it. "I believe Sans has PTSD."

"What's that?" Asked Red knowing that he had heard it before but didn't know what it meant.

"PTSD is a mental health condition that's often caused by a traumatic event, either experiencing it or witnessing it. Whatever Sans went through effected him so much that he now had post traumatic stress disorder."

"But what does that mean?" Asked Swapfell Sans while giving Ben a serious look. It had become apparent to everyone that the other versions of Sans cared about him more than any of the others. They were alternate versions of him and they felt like they should do whatever they could to help Sans.

"Symptoms usually show up anywhere from three months to years after the event. The symptoms are usually put into four groups which are commonly known as intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, or changes in emotional reactions.

"Symptoms of intrusive memories include recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event, reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again or flashbacks, upsetting dreams about the traumatic event, and severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the event.

"Symptoms of avoidance include trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event and avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event.

"Symptoms of negative changes in thinking and mood include negative feelings about yourself or other people, inability to experience positive emotions, feeling emotionally numb, lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed, hopelessness about the future, memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event, and difficulty maintaining close relationships.

"Symptoms of changes in emotional reactions include irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior, always being on guard for danger, overwhelming guilt or shame, self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much or driving too fast, trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, being easily startled or frightened.

"Sans shows several of these symptoms and I can say with absolute certainty that his is one of the worst cases I've ever seen. I can't fathom what made him go into such a state in the first place. I'm a practiced psychiatrist and I've seen many bad cases of PTSD but seeing someone as kid as him going through that breaks my heart."

"He has been through a lot." Allen agreed looking at his hands remembering what he had seen him go through. Before anyone had time to ask him what he meant they heard footsteps going down the hall. Sans passed the door to the living room and they all got up and followed him.

Sans knew they were following him but he didn't do anything to try and stop them knowing it would be a waste of time. He just kept walking thinking that they would all get tired and give up but they didn't. He had kept his guard up the entire time and hadn't seen any signs of danger for over an hour and a half.

Then he reached a large clearing much like the clearing that they liked attacking him in and a shadow stepped out of the darkness in front of him. It was the head researcher and he had a smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes. Sans stopped and everyone else looked at the man in either hatred or curiosity. "Hello again beast."

Sans took two steps forward ready to punch his lights out when his smile widened a fraction and Sans stopped. He could either use the commands he had trained Sans to respond to or he had something up his sleeve. "I wouldn't recommend taking another step forward, unless you want me to hurt your friends."

Behind him several figures stepped out of the dark and three were covered in black blankets. The blankets were pulled off to reveal Grillby, Asgore, and Mettaton and once they could see they all looked around. They spotted Sans first than saw everyone else behind him and they all struggled to get free.

Sans knew that the chains were incredibly hard to break and the people holding them back were to strong to get away from. Sans was about to take another step forward when he saw more movement behind him. Another person was brought out from the shadows and the blanket was pulled off to reveal W.D. Gaster.

The one he thought had died in that 'accident' at the core. Sans knew that it wasn't an accident but he thought Gaster was dead. Upon seeing Gaster being held captive along with the other three Sans got angry. Sans would have attacked the head researcher then and there if he knew the others wouldn't get hurt.

"You have two choices beast, either surrender or fight and let these people die." Sans clenched his hand into fists at his sides than quickly opened them again and looked straight at the head researcher. Sans put his hands up and everyone seemed horrified and it wasn't just the ones behind him.

He took a few steps forward and the four that were being held captive were released. They all walked toward Sans and they tried to stop him from going but he walked right past them. He was halfway to them when he stopped and put his hands down than glared at the head researcher.

Three people walked over carrying chains which they used to put on Sans' manacles. They also put, what could simply be described as, a metal collar around his neck with chains connected to it. Sans just stood there the whole time without moving at all and when they tugged on the chains to get him to move he did.

Everyone called to him and Sans looked back and gave them a small smile that seemed to say 'it'll be okay.' He walked out of the clearing with them and soon enough they were swallowed by the darkness. They all tried looking for Sans but the forest was to dense and easy to get lost in.

However there was one more person that didn't want Sans to go with them. The piece of Arvie that was in Sans' soul responded to the skeletons fear and decided to do something about it. Arvie used the energy he had to make a sort of semi-physical form to appear in front of the others.

Allen recognized him immediately and was about to say his name when Arvie waved for them to follow him. Allen followed his without a second thought and everyone else wasn't far behind. Arvie was outlined in purple and lit up the space around him as he quickly lead them to Sans.

Eventually Arvie stopped and they looked to see that they had somehow gotten in front of them and were on the left side of the path they were traveling on. When they were right in front of them the skeletons used their bone magic to separate Sans from the others. The bones disappeared and the others ran out of the trees and blocked them from getting to Sans again.

The head researcher sighed then smiled, "Defend." Suddenly Sans was in front of them and when he looked up they saw that he had empty eye sockets. The head researcher laughed like a mad scientist and looked at them with a glare. "Did you really think it would be that easy? I've trained the beast to respond to my every command."

They looked from Sans to the head researcher and all of them got angry very quickly. The head researcher was getting bored quickly and decided to end this as quickly as possible. "Attack."

Sans went at them and was more than half way to them when Arvie quickly stepped in front of them. Sans stopped in an instant and looked at Arvie with his empty eye sockets. In his mind Sans was fighting with the logical part of his brain that told him to follow orders. Another part of his brain was telling him not to hurt his friends and his head started to hurt.

He hid his face in his hands and after several seconds the logical part of his brain gave up. It literally threw it's metaphorical hands up, said 'fuck it' and walked away. Sans looked at the ground and his hands fell where the manacles would let them and his eye flared.

He turned to the head researcher and ran at him instead but someone blocked him before he could do anything. They knocked him backward and he hit his back while sliding on the ground. He got up and tried to break the chains but he couldn't break them and someone punched him in the face.

There was a loud crack and Sans felt his skull crack where he had been punched. He was knocked backward another few inches but he quickly recovered and punched the guy in the stomach. The force caused him to hit a tree and fall to the ground unconscious from hitting his head on the tree.

Sans kept fighting but because of the chains limiting his movements he couldn't fight as well. He had gotten several injuries and tried to break the chains several times before giving up on the idea. Sans was getting angry and panicked because his friends would be hurt if he lost.

Two more people were moving to hit him when there was a loud crack, than another, and another. Sans' bones were breaking and reforming and Sans once again tried to break the chain. This time they broke and he attacked again while his bones were still breaking and reforming.

As the fight went on it slowly stopped but it was painful even when it stopped yet Sans kept fighting. Everyone was amazed at the way Sans was fighting the whole time the fight went on. None of them had ever seen Sans fight like he was at that very moment.

Sans was giving it his all and wouldn't stop no matter what injuries he got or how tired he was. He moved with incredible accuracy and was even doing back flips to dodge and counter attack. He moved in every direction with amazing speed that some of them had never seem.

The ones that had seen him fight before hadn't expected Sans to fight with such determination to win. The fight was soon over with only the head researcher left standing. Arvie smiled and looked at his best friend with admiration then looked at the head researcher.

Sans walked to the head researcher with the same look of defiance he always had when he was around. The head researcher tried using his commands but none of them worked and Sans kept walking toward him.

Without having any other option the head researcher fought Sans and caused some of the cracks to worsen. The whole right side of his skull was cracked, he had very few ribs that weren't cracked or broken, and his arms and legs seemed to be screaming at him. Sans kept fighting but he was getting really tired so he had to switch it up.

He used his emotions to fuel his actions and after several long minutes of fighting with the head researcher the fight was over. Sans had won but he was badly hurt and he was just barely conscious. Arvie had disappeared right after the fight was over and Sans looked at the others before falling to the side.

He hit the ground and everyone was at his side in less than ten seconds. His brother held him in his arms and Sans could barely see but he could make out several figures. Several of them were talking but their voices were muffled and Sans' eyes slowly closed.

Everyone started freaking out but Ben stayed calm and asked if anyone could see if he was okay. Red looked at his stats and saw that he was at .000000001 HP and they all went into a flurry of panic. Several seconds later the Sans' had been tasked with getting Sans to the nearest monster hospital.

They teleported to the hospital and the others made their way to town at top speed. Ben was faster than most of them which was surprising considering his age but they had more pressing things on their minds.

The four Sans made it to the hospital and Swapfell carried him while the others cleared the way for him. The person at the front desk saw them come in and got doctors and nurses down there quickly. Blueberry, Red, and Swapfell refused to leave Sans alone and the doctors hadn't tried to stop them.

They didn't use needles or anything else for fear of making it worse so they got someone to heal him with healing magic. It took three healers to stabilize him but it hadn't brought his HP up at all which was worrying. Everyone else got there soon after he was stabilized and some of them stayed in the waiting room but the others were with Sans.

The skeletons in the group helped bring his HP up a little but they couldn't get it up by much. The doctors checked on his condition frequently and at least one person was with him the whole time. The people that were in the room at the time stayed awake until someone else came in to let them rest.

Some of the monsters that worked in the hospital knew Sans and would come into the room to ask how he was doing. They would be surprised by the way he looked but they weren't scared. There were several times when his HP would drop or his condition would turn to critical.

Doctors would rush into the room and stabilize his condition again but they eventually just had someone stay in the room. They had also found out that Sans' soul had cracked in several places but it had somehow held together. The doctors tried to heal the soul but whenever someone got close to it magic would move them to another part of the room.

Sans woke up the next day and the doctors were glad but they were concerned when he didn't speak. Allen and Ben had told the doctors that he never spoke anymore and the doctors expressed their understanding. Sans kept getting out of bed despite others concerns and Allen explained why. Sans often moved around a lot when he got hurt because he would become stir crazy and want to do something.

Eventually Sans was able to leave the hospital and go back home which was good but he didn't seem to care. Sans started going out in public more because the others pushed him to do so. Mettaton had given him a shout out on TV which he also didn't react to but in his head he had wished he could disappear.

Frisk had brought him to the school so he could chaperone on a field trip and several kids wanted to go with him. The field trip had been to the botanical gardens and Sans knew what most of the plants were thanks to Ben. The other skeletons had made him go to the movies and other places with a decent amount of people.

Ben helped him start talking again and he smiled more which everyone was glad for. Sans still had panic attacks and nightmares but he was getting better which was surprising. They never saw the head researcher again which was weird but they were happy they didn't. Sans told them what happened some time after he started talking and all of them were sad and angry.

Even the people that already knew about what happened where because Sans told them what happened during the last four months he had been missing. It was by far the worst part but everything was okay in the end.

*****

The head researcher kept thinking about how Sans had fought the last time he saw him. He found that he was actually scared of the skeleton and eventually became unhinged because of it. His madness slowly started to consume him until he went over the edge.

He locked everyone in the lab then he pushed the self destruct button he made for emergencies. The building was destroyed with everyone in it and the project died with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry the ending wasn't that good but hey, happy ending. Also I wanted to make a sort of detailed backstory for what happened to Sans and maybe some alternate versions of the story. If anyone is interested in that please tell me whether your a guest or not.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what I can do better and if you find mistakes. Thank you!


End file.
